


Unwish

by waveleafcloud



Category: The Magicians (TV)
Genre: All Magic Comes With a Price, Happy Ending, Loose Interpretation of Greek Mythology, M/M, Memory Loss, Post-Episode: s04e13 No Better To Be Safe Than Sorry, Recovery, Resurrection, Wishes
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-09-30
Updated: 2019-11-04
Packaged: 2020-11-08 00:10:38
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 72,631
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20826110
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/waveleafcloud/pseuds/waveleafcloud
Summary: Quentin’s back from the dead and recovering and everything’s fine.  Of course, no one seems to know exactly how he made it back, and he can’t shake the feeling that he’s forgotten something important, and he’s really not sure what’s going on with him and Eliot lately…





	1. unself

**Author's Note:**

> Warnings: canon-typical discussion of depression, and as in the show, Quentin wonders whether his death was a meaningful sacrifice of some kind, suicide, or both. 
> 
> Also, if Quentin seems particularly oblivious and a little bit off in the first chapter, he has reason to be. More spoilery notes (regarding the dubious ethics of making life-and-mind-altering decisions for a dead person, if that might bother you) at the end.
> 
> The story and chapter titles are taken from “pity this busy monster, manunkind,” by e.e. cummings. The poem as a whole has nothing to do with this story at all, but I happened to reread it recently, and some of the language was so apt that I appropriated it anyway.

_…like I helped it wake up and remember what it was before._

It’s very cold. Like too cold to shiver, too cold to sustain human life kind of cold. That’s the first thing he understands.

The next thing is a voice, very familiar and dear. Alice’s voice. She’s saying, “Something’s wrong! Eliot, it’s Margo, the preservation spell isn’t—”

Alice is alive. She made it, he thinks in relief, even though she sounds upset right now. It’s fitting that she should be the last thing he hears, the last person on his mind before he—

“It’s all right, Bambi, let it go,” comes another voice, and he feels it sink into his bones like the first drop of warmth he’s ever felt, quelling the ever-thrumming anxiety that’s been there for weeks and months.

Eliot. He did it; he saved Eliot. Now, if he lets go, if he doesn’t survive this last effort, it’s all right, because it hasn’t all been in vain, it’s meant something, _his life_ has—

“I can hold it!” barks a third voice, and it’s Margo, never far from Eliot, and they’ll be all right, they’ll be all right together…

“You don’t have to, Bambi, _let the spell go_. He’s waking up.”

“How do you know?” Fourth voice, concerned but strong. “If you’re wrong—”

This is a funny deathbed conversation to overhear, but he supposes that the scene couldn’t be complete without his oldest friend in the world standing by and arguing with someone.

But wait. They weren’t all with him when he—_is_ this dying?

“I’m not wrong, Julia, _look_.”

The arctic cold is receding. Something’s shaking, and gasping, and he realizes with a start that it’s him, it’s _Quentin_. Like the flame of a lighter that’s been struggling to spark in a blizzard, and now, suddenly, sputters to life…

“Q, it’s okay, take it easy, you’re okay!” Two soft hands are holding his hands, he feels, just about the same time he registers that he has hands.

I have eyes, he thinks, and blinks them open to see Eliot, standing a few feet away and staring back at him. He’s half-supporting Margo, who’s struggling against his hold even though she looks like she’s about to collapse.

“For fuck’s sake, I can stand, El, and your leg—”

“My leg is fine, and no, you can’t, given that you just fell over,” Eliot tells her, not looking away from Quentin.

Margo harrumphs, but deigns to relax some of her weight into the arm that Eliot’s wrapped around her. She looks at Quentin, too. “Well, come on, say something nerdy so that we know it’s really you,” she says, carelessly sharp tone belied by the intent, worried expression on her face.

“Q?” asks Julia, from his right, where she’s got one hand clasped in hers, and Quentin reluctantly tears his gaze from Eliot to look over at her.

“Quentin,” pleads Alice, and she’s on his left, gripping his other hand tightly.

He glances forward again. Eliot’s still staring at him, silent and transfixed, eyes full of some terrible, familiar emotion that Quentin can’t name, but feels suffusing the air all around him.

“So, um,” he says, finding his voice, “I’m guessing I was only mostly dead?”

* * *

Quentin is in and out of consciousness over the next few days, but there’s always someone by his side whenever he wakes up. He gets the story in bits and pieces.

There’s Julia, turning the pages of a textbook before she looks over and realizes he’s awake. “There was a ritual,” she explains, “to build you a new body. Since yours was—lost—in the Mirror Realm.”

She goes on, but he drifts off again.

“It’s normal that you’re sleeping a lot,” Lipson says later, when asked. Maybe she rode the 23-Uber in, or maybe she’s staying in the castle for now, Quentin’s not sure, but she’s been stopping by to check on him. “Or, I’m not sure anything about this situation is _normal_, per se,” she adds, with a displeased frown that suggests she wasn’t aware they were doing the ritual beforehand, “but given that this body has never been alive before, it makes sense that it tires easily. It’s perfectly healthy, though, from all the tests I’ve been able to run here. I suspect the body—_your_ body—will get accustomed to typical circadian rhythms again soon enough, and you’ll be able to stay awake longer.”

There’s Margo, arguing in hushed voices with Fen, or Josh, or both. “I’m _fine_. All I did was apply my fucking discipline, so how about we focus our caretaking impulses on our recently reanimated little narcoleptic here instead of me. Way to take a cue, Q, that is some good timing,” she adds, seeing that Quentin is opening his eyes. She snatches the glass of water Fen is offering her, and shoves it in Quentin’s face instead. “Water?”

So they built a new body, he learns, which needed to be preserved, hence super-concentrated Cryomancy of some kind. Hence Margo’s magical exhaustion, which she’s denying at every turn.

There’s Alice, sitting on the side of his bed with one hand on his knee when he wakes up next, but talking to someone else. “It doesn’t make sense,” she’s saying. “Julia said you guys didn’t find anything. I’ve been rechecking all your sources, and I even heard back on the request I put in to the Underworld branch, but there’s nothing. No one knows _anything_ about how his soul got back to the body.”

“Maybe we just take the win this time,” Eliot suggests, stepping into view, eyes meeting Quentin’s for a second before he focuses on Alice. “Maybe this is the universe finally throwing us a fucking bone.” He clasps Alice’s other hand in his, briefly, and they share a meaningful look. Since when do Eliot and Alice hold hands and share looks? “Hey, Q,” he adds lightly, and Alice turns her body back to face Quentin too.

“Q! Are you—how are you feeling?”

Quentin, slowly, struggles his way to a seated position. Alice shuffles pillows around to help, and generally fusses over him. It’s nice. “I don’t know,” he says, feeling his limbs out. “I feel a bit better, I guess. Like maybe I can last five minutes before this body gives out.”

“Well, stamina’s important, and something every young man should work at,” Eliot offers sanctimoniously.

Quentin rolls his eyes. “You want me to throw one of these pillows at you? ‘Cause you don’t look like you can dodge that well, right now,” he says, tipping his chin at the cane. No one’s really explained to him how Eliot, or the Monster, had injured Eliot’s leg. No one has really brought up the Monster, or anything _before death_, to him at all, and he hasn’t been awake for long enough stretches of time to ask.

“Yeah? Well, you don’t look like you can lift your arms up right now, baby bird, so I think I’m safe,” Eliot fires back, all fondness and no sense, and for a second Quentin can imagine they’re back in the Cottage at Brakebills, before any of their lives got so fucked up.

Quentin smiles a little and turns back to Alice, who still looks anxious. “I’m okay,” he reassures her.

“But you weren’t,” she says, voice shaking slightly. “You _died_, Q. I saw it happen.” She doesn’t go on, but Quentin hears the rest anyway, and feels something cold slip into the bottom of his stomach. Maybe he should have been grateful that everyone was holding off on the discussion, actually, because he knows this part too well. This is his dad in the hospital, the first time, awkwardly asking, “Those cuts, curly Q, did you—?” or Julia in college, lying down beside him on the floor and breaking the silence with, “You wouldn’t do something without coming to me first, right? Promise me. If you ever felt like you wanted to—” or most starkly, any one of his therapists across the years: “Do you think about killing yourself? Do you want to die?”

And Quentin wants to say no, because he doesn’t want to hurt them, and he’s ashamed of being such a burden, and because he might think about it and want it, even, but he wishes he _didn’t_; but then he also wants to say yes, because maybe they’re asking for the truth, even if it’s only true sometimes, and maybe if he tells someone they’ll be the person who’ll understand, who can _help_…

The answer is, actually, he doesn’t know. He doesn’t know what the right answer is, what the truth is, not when it changes from day to day, and moment to moment. All he’s ever known is that being alive means he can keep thinking about the question. Death is a more permanent answer, one he can’t come back from if it turns out he’s wrong.

Except it turns out that maybe he can come back, so what does that even mean in the grand scheme of things?

He definitely doesn’t know how to say any of this to Alice, who was apparently one of the masterminds of this whole resurrection operation, who was gone from him for so long, in so many ways, and who he just thought he was getting back in his life, right before he… died. Before he killed himself? He’s not sure. This whole situation is very strange.

“Alice…” he says.

“We don’t have to talk about this now,” she whispers, blinking tears from her eyes determinedly.

“It’s okay, you kids chat,” Eliot interrupts. “Sorry, I’d make a more discreet and elegant exit, but.” He waves the cane. “You’d hear me go anyway.”

“No, you stay,” Alice says. “You can sit here. I have to—there’s some stuff I have to check on, for work, and then back at Brakebills. We’re figuring out how to get you back there, to recover. And to start building up your magic again; we don’t know how this body will… Lipson’s been staying here, but it’ll be easier to monitor you with more healers, and without having to account for the ambient parameters in Fillory.”

“Oh. Yeah. That makes sense,” Quentin says.

“It wouldn’t be right away, of course. But if you’re okay with it?” she asks uncertainly.

“Yeah. I think it sounds good,” he says, and she leans in for a very careful hug.

“I’ll see you soon, okay? We’ll talk more.”

“Serious conversation, can’t wait,” Quentin says, and that earns him Alice’s tiny reluctant smile, the one that always made him think that maybe her facial muscles weren’t used to pulling that way, and that made him want to keep making her happy until the day that they _were_. He hadn’t managed that so well, their first go-around, had he? Or the second, he supposes, what with the whole him-dying thing. But they’ve got another chance now.

Eliot pats her shoulder as she passes him on her way out, then sinks down on to the bed in her place, at an angle so he can face Quentin where he’s propped up against the headboard with his small army of cushions.

“So, hey there, stranger,” Eliot says brightly.

“Uh, long time, no see?”

“Yes, well, I suppose death does create a certain distance.”

“Yeah. So does possession by an ancient, unkillable, nameless monster.”

There’s a split second in which it might turn awkward, but Eliot beams at him, wide and true, and Quentin feels his own smile stretching the unused muscles of this brand new face, and he feels like a person, maybe for the first time since he woke up in this brand new body that looks just like his old one. Maybe for the first time in longer than that.

The world and magic are probably still fucked in some way or another, and Quentin apparently died and came back to life and there’s a lot to unpack there, but just for now, he thinks, he’s earned this moment of happiness with his friend.

“You know, it’s considered extremely offensive, in some cultures, to touch someone who has recently returned from beyond the veil,” Quentin invents on a whim. Eliot blinks. “But you, uh, you should probably hug me right now.”

He’s barely finished his sentence before Eliot pulls him in and hugs him _tight_. There’s nothing tentative about it: he doesn’t treat Quentin like his new body is breakable, but like he desperately wants to make sure it’s as solid and real as it looks, and the only way to confirm the truth is with the test of his embrace. Quentin squeezes back with these new arms (both flesh, no hollow wood to be found), and relaxes into the familiar warmth and strength of it.

Finally, Eliot pulls back to extricate himself partially, but maintains a light hold on Quentin’s arms as he speaks again. “Naptime now?” he asks, teasing but solicitous. “Did that use up your batteries for the day?”

Quentin _is_ starting to feel tired, actually, but he says, “No, stay a few minutes. I, uh, have some questions, and I keep falling asleep before I ask them. About what happened.”

“Oh,” Eliot says, looking down. “I don’t know if I’m the best person—as much as I’d like to take the credit for this sort of universe-altering magic, you know it was Alice and Julia who put the spell together.”

“Yeah, the spell for the body—my body,” Quentin corrects himself. “But what was Alice saying just now? No one’s said anything about how you guys got—well—_me_ back, from like, the Underworld, I’m guessing?”

Eliot shrugs. “Your guess is probably the best guess in the world, right now, Q. We built the body; your spirit just showed up with suspiciously good timing to re-inhabit it. Do you _remember_ being in the Underworld? Is that a thing one remembers?”

Quentin searches his brain for it, but he’s got nothing. “I remember going there before, with Julia, so I guess people _do_ remember it if they get back to their bodies. But this time, I just remember doing the mending, and then waking up here.”

The crippling cold, which must have been Margo’s preservation spell. Eliot telling her to let the spell go, _he’s waking up_.

Quentin blinks away the flashback. Eliot’s talking again.

“Maybe it’s for the best. Maybe it’s just your mind protecting you. I mean, being blown to bits seems like it might be a tad traumatizing for the psyche, no?”

“Just a bit,” Quentin acknowledges. “And well, I mean, I was in the Mirror Realm. Who knows if death there takes you to the Underworld in the same way? My spirit could’ve just been trapped somewhere else, and found its way back when the new body was built, right?”

“Exactly,” agrees Eliot, sounding relieved, “so maybe we don’t look a gift horse in the whatever.”

He’s right, Quentin knows, but he can’t let things go as easily as Eliot is suggesting. Especially not plot points that could come back to fuck him over royally, and given his history, probably will. He says as much. “I mean, we’re not exactly _lucky_, when it comes to these things.”

“Okay, well, no, but maybe that means we’re _due_ some good shit happening, right about now, of the uncomplicated variety.”

“I used to think that,” Quentin muses. “That all the suffering had to mean something, that it was _for_ something. That if you kept caring, and trying, and working through things, that some power in the universe that weighs good and bad would eventually fall down on your side.”

He doesn’t know if he believes it anymore. All those weeks and months after Blackspire, being willing to make the ultimate sacrifice for the sake of the quest and the betterment of the magical world, and he was rewarded with one hit after another. His dad for magic. Eliot being taken by the Monster, Julia by the Monster’s sister. He thought he’d lost his belief for sure, standing in front of a fucking plant and yelling and trying to make it bloom with the power of _hope_, when he felt like all he had were its ashes.

And then he died himself, and he’s still not sure if it’s what he meant to do, or not.

“Mm, I used to think the opposite,” Eliot replies. He’s staring off into the space next to Quentin’s head, and almost seems like he’s talking to himself. “That all the suffering was pointless, and there was no meaning in the world at all, so why bother caring about anything? Hedonism, oblivion, hit a few good highs on your way to lights out, and that’s the best case scenario.” He shrugs again as he refocuses on Quentin, a good imitation of his Brakebills self, but his eyes give him away. They’d always given him away, Quentin thinks, if you knew where to look.

“And now?” he asks, instead of sharing that observation, which Eliot would certainly not thank him for.

“And now you’re here,” Eliot says, voice wavering minutely before he smiles away the hesitation, and continues more briskly, “and I’m here. Against some pretty long odds. We all made it through, more or less. And, having experienced the alternative, I know that what we have now does mean something. So. Maybe I was wrong, before.”

“Maybe we both were,” Quentin says, through a yawn. He tries to hold on to his train of thought, but his eyelids are growing heavy and the tracks are getting crossed. “Maybe the answer isn’t one or the other, but something in between, or we’ll never know. I think… El, I’m not sure…”

“What, Q?”

“Did I do something brave to save the world? Or did I just… slip?” One or the other, or something in between, or the answer changed from one moment to the next? His eyes are burning, and he wants to curl up and go to sleep, for all that he’s been wishing he could stay awake longer all week, and he hates this about himself, how he sometimes gets so weak and tired that all he can do is cry and sink into the mattress like dead weight.

“Slip?” Eliot asks gently.

“You guys did a lot, to save me. And we don’t even know how I… what if whatever magic brought me back costs us all, down the line, and it’s all because I was too weak, and I gave up? If I did this to myself, how is it worth whatever price we might have to…?”

“It’s worth it,” Eliot interrupts. “Listen. Even if you _slipped_, it doesn’t mean you didn’t deserve to be saved.”

Quentin closes his eyes against the aching feeling that brings, and keeps them shut because of a great wave of exhaustion that crashes over him, almost peaceful after all the emotional upheaval. What is it about Eliot that makes Quentin so happy, but also allows him to be so sad, too? He’s never had a friend he could share the extremes of himself with like this, just free to _be_, he thinks vaguely, not even Julia. Just pure, easy acceptance, and he’s never had to work for it, not since the day they met.

Anyway, it’s because it’s Eliot that he’s able to voice the question that he thinks might always be lurking at the back of his mind. “Shouldn’t I be able to save myself by now? I’ve been trying long enough. Why am I so fucking useless at it, at _life_?”

He feels more than hears Eliot’s sharp inhale. “Hey. You’re not _useless_. You’ve been saving yourself this whole time, and I don’t mean like a virgin. When you feel like you’re going to die and you don’t, and you don’t think you can go another day, but you do… and just now, to dare to be honest about what you’re thinking and feeling and what you’re afraid you’ve _done_…”

He trails off with a little laugh that Quentin’s tired brain registers as unnatural, _anguished_, somehow, but goes on with his tirade before Quentin can question it further. “Just take it from me, you’re the bravest person I know. And anyway, so what if you can’t save yourself sometimes? When your brain chemistry is fucked up, and your life is objectively fucked, and you’re left alone to deal with _all the shit_, it’s not a personal failing to need a little help. Your friends, the people who love you, we’re your safety net, okay? We’re supposed to catch you if you slip, and it’s not a burden, not ever, because we _love you_. And ideally the catching should happen earlier than say, _after your death_, and I wish I’d been there for you then instead of making it worse, I _wish_…” He laughs again, brittle. “Well, never mind that.”

Quentin thinks he’s got the gist of it, even as some of the details confuse him, and he wants to say something grateful in response, but what comes out is: “Hmm?”

“Oh, I think we’ve hit the undead jet lag again,” Eliot says softly. “Definitely need to find a medical term for that.”

“Hmm?” Quentin asks again, trying to blink his eyes open, but generally failing. Eliot’s voice is really soothing. He thinks he feels fingers carding tenderly through his hair, hastening the onset of a deep, warm slumber.

“Nothing, Q. Just sleep.”

* * *

It’s weird, being back at Brakebills. Quentin settles into the Infirmary for a couple of weeks, although his strength and ability to stay awake are improving in leaps and bounds. It’s for monitoring, Lipson explains, in case the kind of untested and poorly understood magic that was used for his resurrection makes it dangerous for him to do magic going forward. So he reviews basic spells, and learns a few that he didn’t have the chance to before, under the watchful eye of the healers.

He doesn’t realize he was expecting to move back into the Cottage once the healers cleared him, like he still has a room there, until he’s taking a physical therapy walk across campus. The bright sunshine, pristine walkways, and clean-cut lawns haven’t changed a bit, but he doesn’t recognize most of the people he passes. There’s a new class of students and school is back in session.

It’s still Brakebills, the place he discovered that magic was real, the first place he ever felt like he fit in, but it’s not the same. There’s no Eliot, waving him over for a drink and a chat, or Margo, clicking along beside him in her tight skirts and high heels, or even Penny, their Penny, pushing him up against a tree and yelling at him to strengthen his wards.

Quentin always thinks back on those few months he had at Brakebills as an easier time, a happier life, but honestly, everything with the Beast started practically in his first week. He’s not even sure how much of the time he recalls so fondly now he actually enjoyed. But still, he misses it. It’s a strange, aching feeling: missing something that’s right in front of you.

He’s still got Alice, the holdover of that old life. She comes to see him every few days, tells him about her plans for the Library, listens to him talk about the spells he did without exploding himself like she hasn’t been getting regular reports from the healers too. It’s nice, spending time with her again, but as they walk past the fountain where her brother died and she almost did, or the rooftop where they bared their skin and their secrets, or when she leans in to kiss him, that’s not quite the same, either.

Quentin doesn’t flinch from the kiss, but he feels inert to it. He doesn’t melt forward, give back the way he thinks he should. It’s like he’s Pygmalion’s statue, only Alice’s kiss doesn’t bring him to life.

“Q?” she asks, looking troubled by his response, or lack thereof. “Do you not want…?”

“I—can we just talk for a minute?”

“Sure,” she says, and sits down on a bench nearby, smoothing her skirt. He comes over to sit next to her.

“I love you,” Quentin starts, because he knows that much is true. “And before, when we talked about us, about trying again, I do want that. I meant what I said. But ever since I got back, I just—I don’t know. I think I’m doing better, mentally. At least, I don’t feel as bad as I did before; I think those last few months with the Monster and everything were the most horrible I’ve ever felt.” He goes on quickly, not wanting to linger on those memories, because he suspects that the secret to doing better mentally is not dwelling, at least for now. “But I don’t feel like myself, in this _body_, yet, maybe? So when you kiss me, or you know, if we tried to do more, I’m not sure—I’m sorry.” He breaks off, a little embarrassed. Ungrateful, maybe. His friends had literally _built_ this body for him, and he is, as always, ruining it.

But Alice takes his hands, and says earnestly, “It’s okay, Q. I get it. After I was a Niffin, when I felt like I was pure light, and knowledge, and magic, and then got crammed back into this tiny, powerless _thing_, I didn’t feel like myself, either. Not for a long time.”

She sighs. Quentin remembers how tormented she was, back then. He remembers the bacon. He remembers the desperate, crashing-together sex, and how it didn’t mean what he thought it meant, at the time.

“I made a lot of mistakes, and I’ve spent a lot of time trying to undo what I did, and wondering if it’s even possible. But then…” She smiles tremulously at him.

“What?”

“You, Q. You were there; you believed in me, you reminded me who I was, before. You mend things, like the cup, and you make me feel like even broken things can be whole again. We fell apart, but if we try, we can get back to how we were.”

Alice is looking at him so hopefully, and so brightly, that he feels illuminated by it, the phosphoromancy of her belief in him. What a lovely thing for someone to say about Quentin, who’s always felt broken himself, and like he’s only ever broken everything that matters.

He recalls telling Alice, not long after their first time at Brakebills South, that despite everything else that was going on in their lives, just being with her made him happy. And he remembers her telling him, far more recently, that she thinks of their short time together the same way, like he was the best thing that ever happened to her.

Is it possible that they can get back to that, to the happy people they were together? Quentin’s not sure, but if they can, if he can find his way back to that person who lived the life he’s nostalgic for now, isn’t that worth trying?

“Maybe we just take it slow,” he suggests.

“Yeah,” Alice agrees readily. “The physicality of it, of resurrection, I mean. I don’t know, I felt so awful, for a while, like everything I sensed with my body was painful and disgusting. I just wanted to feel something good. But in retrospect, we probably shouldn’t have fallen into bed like we did. So let’s just, like, table that, for a while.”

He’s always loved this about her, the way she takes everything he says and considers it reasonably. Tries to understand. But the thing is, he’s not sure she does understand. Quentin isn’t _repulsed_ by the physicality of his body. He just isn’t quite sure what to do with it. Sometimes, he has these moments of disconnect, like he doesn’t quite understand where the difference lies, between being a body, and being a person.

But maybe it’s like what he said, about the cup. He’s woken up in this new body; he’s just got to remember what he was before. Being with Alice can only help with that.

Alice squeezes her hand when she leaves, and he squeezes back, but she doesn’t try to kiss him again.

* * *

“And how are we affording this, exactly?” Quentin asks. It’s perfect: an upscale, two-bedroom apartment, not as nice as the penthouse, but not a typical Manhattan shoebox, either.

Before Julia can answer, someone else cuts in. “Fillorian royalty golden parachute,” Eliot announces grandly, stepping into the living room from where he was apparently hiding in the kitchen. “Since so many of us are getting deposed or forcibly retired, these days.”

“Eliot!” Quentin says, half running forward to meet him. Eliot takes the embrace sideways, like it’s his due, wrapping an arm around Quentin affectionately.

Margo clears her throat from beside them, and Eliot pulls her into his other side. “This generous pension plan brought to you courtesy of co-High King Bambi,” he adds dutifully.

“That’s right,” she says. “And don’t you forget it.”

“What are you guys _doing_ here?” Quentin asks, delighted. He’s just about finished with his period of observation, and since the healers have been politely hinting that he stop taking up space, he and Julia have been out apartment hunting all day. They had both decided, not long after returning to Earth, that moving back into Kady’s place wasn’t the best option for him.

Julia, in typical fashion, had brought a bulleted, researched list and dragged him from place to place, saving this one for last.

She’s smiling at him now. “Thought you might like this one,” she says. “Surprise?”

“We ran into Julia at Brakebills when I was there for a check-up,” Eliot explains, rolling his eyes at the need for basic medical care after life-threatening injury.

“And?” Quentin asks.

Eliot releases Quentin and Margo from his hold so he can step a few feet away, holding his arms out meaningfully. “Notice anything missing?”

“No cane! Oh my God, El, that’s great.”

“Yes, yes. But anyway, we were going to drop in on you, but Julia mentioned your homeless troubles. So we figured we’d lend a hand, and see you at your surprise housewarming, instead.”

“Housewarming? You mean, this is our place?”

“We got the landlord to change the move-in date to today, and _discouraged_ the other applicants,” Margo says, sharing a glance with Eliot. Quentin decides he’s not going to ask any more questions about how they achieved that miraculous feat.

“Hoberman is bringing food, Kady is bringing liquor. Alice is bringing herself,” Eliot says, ticking them off on his fingers. “Julia brought you. And _we_, my dear friend, come bearing gifts.”

“I thought yours and Margo’s presence _was_ the gift. And the apartment, I mean.”

Margo smiles and pinches his cheek, mocking but kind-eyed. “Aw, he’s sweet, El. I’d forgotten how sweet he was. You were right.” Eliot nods knowingly. “Once upon a time, Eliot convinced me that a little first-year nerd was worth adopting. I was reluctant, but he grew on me. I missed you, Q.”

“Well, we are sort of friends,” Quentin says, and hugs her carefully, without Eliot in between.

“Now your gifts,” Margo says, and no one mentions that she looks a little emotional, post-hug. She takes out a pouch from her pocket and withdraws two finely braided strings, one black and one green. She sets them down on the kitchen counter. “Hold out your arm.”

He does, and she arranges it so the strings are lying under his wrist. Then Eliot steps up, closes his eyes, and does a complicated series of gestures. The strings loop up and tie themselves in an impossibly intricate set of interlocking knots, forming a bracelet. Quentin watches them in wonder, and he watches Eliot’s hands: the way Eliot does physical magic is always so breathtaking.

“There,” Eliot says. “All done.” He opens his eyes. Before Quentin can lift up his arm to examine the bracelet in more detail, it fades away into thin air.

“What is it?” Julia asks.

“Horomancy, bitches,” Margo says. She gestures at the Fillory clock, which Quentin hasn’t noticed standing innocuously in a corner of the living room until now, the only piece of furniture that’s present.

“Since we’re living on different worlds and all, we thought it was about time we figured out how to prevent any inconvenient and jarring time jumps.”

“I _hate_ when shows do that between seasons for shock value,” Margo says emphatically.

“So uncreative. So much of a cop-out to any kind of genuine emotional resolution,” Eliot agrees.

“So we fixed it,” Margo continues.

“All of us wear our friendship bracelets.” At this, Eliot and Margo both lift their wrists, on which nothing is visible, and Eliot goes on, “And _voila_! As long as at least one of us is always in Fillory and on Earth, the timelines run together. We’re anchors.”

“It’s like our cycles have synched up,” Margo finishes, which makes Julia laugh in disbelief. “Fen’s holding the fort down now; we timed the spell for when Eliot and I stepped through the portal, which means about a two-hour time difference. Julia, you’re up for the gifting next.”

Quentin’s half laughing himself. “So, you’re telling me, you two fixed the Fillory-Earth time zone issue? A problem that’s literally been going on since the Chatwin era, if not longer? How?”

“Ember and Umber were a dysfunctional family of assholes,” Margo says. “But when they were together, they brought balance.”

“Yeah, Ember was chaos, Umber was order.”

“But the whole ‘hundreds of years might randomly pass, ha, ha, ha’ thing always smacked a lot more of Ember’s bullshit.”

Quentin thinks about it. “Yeah, well, Ember was stronger, I guess. And then Umber was banished, for a while.”

Margo shrugs. “And now they’re both dead. Balance again. With them out of the picture, and the Wellspring working properly, we figured things might be malleable enough that we could shift the balance to something that works for us. Align the time zones with a spell.”

“Margo, that’s amazing! You got all that from Ember and Umber being dead? That is like, straight up Fillorian lore mastery.”

She glances at Eliot slyly. He looks away. “Actually, I didn’t come up with the idea; El did. He won’t tell me how he thought of it, but I think it’s because he’s still pretending he hasn’t read the Fillory books.”

“I’m sort of surprised El read a book at all,” Quentin teases, which makes Margo laugh. “He really must have missed me.”

“Ah, alcohol,” Eliot says airily, seeing Kady coming through the door. “I know where I’m wanted,” he adds, floating the bags she’s carrying telekinetically out of her hands and over to the counter. “Bartending has always been my true discipline.”

“Listen, Q,” Margo says, more urgently, pulling him further away from where Eliot is unpacking ingredients in the kitchen. Kady’s helping, and Julia has gone over to greet her. “Use the clock, okay? Come see us. I know I was shit at checking in with you last year, with everything going on, and I want us to do better.”

“Yeah, me too,” Quentin says, touched. “I want to see more of you guys. I’ve missed you, too.”

She hesitates. “And—look, I want you to be okay. You’ve got to take care of yourself, that’s número uno. But if you’ve got the bandwidth. When you see him. Look out for El, too, okay?”

“Why? What? Margo, is he not okay? What did the healers say?”

“Nothing like that,” she says, stealing another glance in Eliot’s direction to make sure he’s still distracted. “Just… he won’t talk to me about what happened with the Monster. And when you were gone, he was fucked up, Q. I’ve never seen him like that, not even with all the Mike stuff. I think he’s doing better, now that things are more settled, but I just. He’s _sad._” She pronounces the word like a profanity. “I get the feeling he’s not telling me something. So maybe he’ll tell you.”

Quentin frowns. “I mean, if he’s not telling _you_…”

“You’re the only other person I trust with this, with Eliot. Maybe it’s just post-Monster PTSD, but I’m worried, and I can’t watch him all the time.”

“Of course I’ll look out for him,” Quentin promises. “It’s El. I would do anything.”

“I know,” Margo says. “That’s why I’m telling you to look after yourself, first.” 

* * *

Life goes on, strange as it is. Eliot and Margo go back to Fillory, after making the time stabilizing bracelets for everyone, and teaching them the spell themselves, in case there’s any trouble. True to their word, Quentin has a more than comfortable direct deposit of income coming into his bank account now, so over the next few weeks, he and Julia get down to the business of setting up their place.

He and Alice spend a nice morning picking out living room furniture while Julia’s off with the other Penny somewhere, and once it’s delivered, Alice spends the afternoon sitting on the new couch with him and chatting about her week. Quentin, for his part, listens attentively, asks questions, and smiles. He doesn’t really have many positive feelings for the Library, but he admires Alice’s energy, her purpose. He thinks she looks a lot happier than she has in a while, and he’s glad for it.

When she gets up, he walks her to the door, and then, awkwardly, pecks her on the cheek. Her smile is brilliant, like she’s proud of him for this smallest attempt at being a normal person.

After she leaves, though, Quentin sinks back on to the couch and thinks about _his_ week, and how he’d had basically nothing to tell, besides apartment shopping stuff. He died, and came back to life, and he’s _wasting_ it, wasting his second chance sitting around and doing nothing.

Quentin doesn’t sleep that night.

The next morning, in the epic ongoing battle between the fatigued inertia of depression, and the hyper-acute, palpitating energy of anxiety, anxiety wins out. Quentin: vacuums the apartment, calls the magician-catering mental health clinic Lipson had told him about weeks ago, calls the pharmacy to fill a prescription, looks up recipes online, makes a shopping list, and actually goes to the fucking grocery store to buy things. He’s putting stuff in the fridge when Julia comes back to the apartment.

“Hey,” he says, “I didn’t hear you come in last night.”

“No, I—um.”

“Stayed with Penny?” he asks curiously, because Julia sounds weird. Come to think of it, she’s been out a lot the past few days. Also, where does Penny even live?

“No, no, we’re just trying to be friends. I actually spent the night at Brakebills,” she confesses.

“What?”

“So, back when you were in the Infirmary for a couple of weeks, you know how I sat in on some classes?”

“Yeah…”

“Dean Fogg actually asked me if I wanted to stay on as a full-time student, now that I don’t have my goddess powers anymore,” she gets out in a rush. “I told him no, because I mean, fuck them for offering it to me now, when they rejected me before for no reason, and besides, you and I had plans to be roommates and take a long staycation, but I’ve been thinking.”

“You want to do it,” Quentin realizes.

“I love magic,” Julia says. “I really do. And being a goddess means I leveled up, skipped a whole bunch of steps, but now… there’s still so much to learn, that I missed the first time around. The theory, the practice. Did you know I was a Knowledge student, in all the other timelines? I know it won’t be the same as _divinity_, and I’ve been struggling with that, but I still want to learn.”

“That’s—that’s great. You’re going to be brilliant, Jules. You’re going to love it,” Quentin says. He’s excited for her, but he feels like his heart is sinking.

“Q, would you come back with me?” Julia asks. “I mean, if you need a break from it, or a rest, I understand. But it would be so much fun, doing this together, like we should have, the first time around, you know? And I don’t want to leave you alone here, either way. I can always portal in and out to classes; I don’t have to live there.”

“Don’t be stupid. You’d have to stay there a lot of the time, or you’d never get any work done. But…” Could he go back, for real? He loves magic too, of course he does, he always has. And eventually, he’s going to have to think about what he wants to do with his life, beyond the grand accomplishment of getting groceries and planning a single-dish dinner menu for one. But Quentin’s not ready. He’s not ready to face those ghosts yet, go back to that uncanny version of Brakebills that both is and isn’t exactly what he remembers. The thought of it makes him feel unspeakably _wrong_.

“I’ll be fine here,” he says. “Don’t worry about me. And maybe I’ll be able to come back, some day, but I don’t think I’m ready yet.”

Life goes on, Quentin thinks again. But is this living? Is he really living?

It feels like all of his friends are doing something, being someone, and he’s just caught in the mire. It’s not like it was before, when Eliot was possessed and magic was fucked and he was wading waist-deep, then neck-deep, in so much acute misery that eventually he stopped feeling the rushing submergence of emotion, and just felt the cold and the numb.

He’s not _miserable_ now. Sometimes, he even approaches contentment, surrounded by the people he loves, seeing them out of danger, and succeeding in their individual elements. But he’s just stuck, and he doesn’t know why. No one knows how his spirit made it back to this body, he thinks. Maybe it didn’t. Maybe he didn’t.

Quentin begs off dinner and drinks with Julia and Kady, citing his partially executed groceries and cooking plan, and then forces her out the door when she offers to stay in with him instead.

He’s not a bad cook, exactly, so much as a very indifferent one. He doesn’t relish the minutiae of the finished product, or take pride in the preparation; he doesn’t _enjoy_ cooking. And that shows. But he’s doing this anyway.

Basically, it’s not really that much of a tragedy when the door of the Fillory clock bursts open out of nowhere, and startles Quentin into dropping his plate before he takes a bite.

“Fuck!” he says anyway, heart racing.

Eliot surveys the scene in mild befuddlement. “I didn’t think you’d be home,” he says.

“Uh. Okay?” Quentin says, after a moment, and waits for Eliot to pass through on his way to wherever he’s headed on Earth. It’s like the apartment is a way station, he thinks, resigned, for people actually doing something with their lives.

Eliot stares at him a bit longer, then laughs. “I don’t actually have plans. I just wanted to be—elsewhere, for a while. I’d ask to join you for dinner, but.” Stepping closer to the kitchen, he takes in the tableau: the faint smell of burning, the less-than-appetizing-to-begin-with meal that looks even less appetizing as a splat on the tile, and Quentin, barefoot, standing with a million pieces of former plate scattered on the floor around him.

“Yeah. You’re not really missing out.” Quentin feels kind of like a disaster, but with Eliot there, it’s funnier, and less weighty. “Takeout?” he suggests.

“Delivery,” Eliot decides. “You’re treating me. Order it, my phone is dead on arrival, as always. Why the fuck Fillory drains its batteries when it’s off—hey, watch out!”

Quentin, who had been about to grab his phone from the counter, stops with one foot raised over a sharp piece of ceramic. Oh, right. Then, he remembers that his discipline is actually Repair of Small Objects, and reaches for the fragments of the plate that he can feel calling out to him, to be whole again.

The odd thing is, though, that they don’t come together right away. They want to, but they’re also being pulled away, toward the trashcan. Eliot, he realizes, has instinctively reached out to them too, and is using telekinesis to try to clean up.

“Are you doing that?” Eliot asks, a puzzled expression on his face, as he tugs at the pieces of ceramic that are now hovering motionless in mid-air, halfway to the trashcan, but also half-forming a loose, floating map of the plate they were once. 

“Yeah,” Quentin says. It’s an odd, exhilarating feeling, coming up against Eliot’s magic like this. They’re working in opposite directions, but in close quarters, magically speaking. It feels like pressing up against someone as they push back with equal force; like being intimately aware of the texture of their skin against yours. “I discovered my discipline, did I tell you?” Quentin asks rhetorically, still concentrating on the task at hand.

“Q, that’s amazing,” Eliot says. Quentin doesn’t look up, but he can hear the smile in his voice. “A real physical kid, not that you could’ve ever been otherwise. Well, show me what you’ve got.” Eliot pulls at the shards of the plate once more, playfully, before spreading his fingers wide and abruptly releasing his magical hold on them.

Quentin, who has been pulling against resistance but suddenly isn’t, feels thrown by the force of his own magic, unencumbered. The pieces of the plate fly back together like a rubber band snapping back on itself, tension released into the wild. He laughs, breathless. Such a small thing, but it feels so _right_ when it all comes together like that. He realizes too late that he’s stupidly mended the plate in mid-air, just as it’s about to fall again, when Eliot kindly catches it and floats it into his hands.**  
**

“Minor Mending,” Eliot says. “Of course it would be.”

“Right?” Quentin examines the plate, poring over it with his fingertips. Something doesn’t feel quite—ah, there’s a tiny chip missing from the bottom. He searches for it in his mind, or in the world, with this magical sixth sense, because he can feel all the surrounding edges of the object trying to close the gap, but meets resistance when he pulls at the missing piece. A very familiar resistance. “El…”

Eliot snickers, and opens his hand to reveal the little shard. Free of his magical interference, it returns to its rightful place.

“How did you…?” Quentin wonders.

“Oh, a little distraction, a little sleight of hand. Let you feel the brunt of my magic being released, and it’s easy to miss one tiny piece held behind. Thought you were supposed to be a lower-case-m magician, Q.”

“Caught it, didn’t I?”

“You did at that,” Eliot says, in a strangely raw voice, and then sighs. “You know, actually, maybe I should just—”

Quentin’s only half-listening, recalling the sensation of the plate trying to knit itself together. “It wants to be whole,” he muses.

Eliot stops in his tracks. “What did you just say?”

“I could tell it was missing something, because I could feel all the surrounding pieces trying to come together, to make up for the missing piece. But I couldn’t tell exactly what was missing until I looked. I wonder… how small a defect would I be able to fix; like, what if I couldn’t even see it? Or, does a repair require that all the pieces of the whole be present and accounted for? Could I recreate a missing piece of something I had never seen, if the piece was lost somewhere far away? I don’t know, objects have a sort of _sense-memory_ that’s not fully understood; they remember what they were before.”

Oh, he’s rambling again. Quentin looks up, expecting a glazed over expression, but Eliot’s smiling at him, if a little wide-eyed and wondering. It’s not exactly _attentive_, but it’s present. “What?” he asks, a touch self-conscious.

“Sounds like the start of your thesis,” Eliot says. “Mayakovsky could be your advisor,” he adds, and ugh, he shouldn’t even joke about that.

“Julia’s going back to Brakebills,” Quentin says, feeling the uncertainty sink into him again. “Or, going for the first time, I guess.”

There’s a long pause. “And you’re not,” Eliot says, in his usual way of making a statement when he wants to ask a question. Sometimes it’s annoying (why doesn’t he just _ask_?), but right now, it allows Quentin to sidle up to the thing that’s making him uncomfortable at his own pace.

He picks up his phone and flicks through the delivery app as he talks. “When I was there, at the Infirmary, there was a part of me that thought, well, that’s it. Magic’s fixed, I can go back to school, move back into the Cottage, things will be just like they were before. And this—everything that’s happened—will just be a bad memory. I _died_, and you were possessed, and magic was gone, and—what, I’ll just do the make-up work and get enough credits to graduate? Find a real job, whatever it is Magicians do out in the world?” Settle down with Alice? Weekend visits to his friends in Fillory? When they’re all together, they’ll reminisce about “those crazy few years” when things were absolute shit, from the distance of the happy lives they’ll lead?

It’s hard to imagine. Once upon a time, just the discovery that magic was _real_ struck him as such an adventure. Now, with everything that’s happened, the life of an ordinary Magician seems almost mundane. It’s not a bad thing. But Quentin’s just not sure he knows how to live that life.

Eliot hums understandingly, but lets it drop. He’s standing over Quentin’s shoulder. “Get that,” he suggests. “No—”

“Just pick out the mushrooms and give them to me.” He orders a couple of curries, some rice, and some eggrolls. That done, he wanders over to the couch to wait; instead of sitting next to him, Eliot settles down on to the floor beside him, back against the couch and legs stretched out. He tilts his face up to look at Quentin until Quentin slides down too. They sit together in comfortable silence.

“Didn’t think I would be in the mood for Thai food again, not after my ill-advised and haunting analogy,” Eliot says after a while. He shakes his head when Quentin goes to ask him what that means. “Never mind. But hey! Did you know, my wife is now theoretically my widow? Or ex-wife, I guess. I’m not actually sure what the term is.”

“What?”

“Fen went through Fillorian mourning for me when she thought I was dead. There’s no legal mechanism for declaration of death there, so theoretically, even though I’m back, it’s like we were never married. Which is convenient for her, because I think she’s got it bad for _Bambi_.”

“_What_?”

“_But_,” Eliot adds with relish, “somehow, my being gone tilted the world off its axis, because Bambi’s apparently _with_ Josh. Which, what the fuck?”

“Right,” Quentin says, because he knows that, but it really is sort of bizarre, if you think about it.

“So yeah, Margo and Fen are co-High Kings, but what it really means is high _drama_. Heaving bosoms, intrigue, and jealousy.”

“You’re loving it,” Quentin surmises.

“I—I guess,” Eliot says, but his face has fallen. He hitches a smile back on to it. “I do, as you know, enjoy the drama. But.”

“El?”

“I guess we’re both back from the dead, in some ways, Q,” he says finally. “It’s like, you get your life back, and everyone’s happy you’re there, but they’ve just—the world has just—”

It’s moved on around you. The people you love have left you a place, they _missed _you, they want you to get back into the stream of it, but you’re not sure how. You’re not sure you fit, anymore.

He looks at Eliot, and Eliot looks back, and there’s this wordless comprehension that passes between them that feels like a constant in the shifting world: it was there before everything happened, and it’s still there now, warm and comforting. They’re still together, still on the same page.

There’s a knock at the door. Eliot nudges Quentin with his foot. Quentin shoves back.

“I was crippled.”

“I was dead. _And_ I ordered.”

So Eliot gets the food, and the conversation moves on as they work their way through it, along with a couple of glasses of wine.

“That fucker,” Eliot complains as an aside. “I can’t drink the way I used to, after the years he took off my liver.”

“That’s probably a good thing,” Quentin points out, not mentioning the fact that Eliot had probably done plenty of damage on his own, pre-Monster.

Quentin doesn’t like to dwell on the Monster, as a general rule. But in a curious turn of events, Eliot is the only one he feels at all okay discussing the experience with. When he and Julia had decided to find a new apartment immediately post-Brakebills instead of staying with Kady for a few weeks, they had both been concerned that spending time in the space where he had been so miserable and like, _traumatized_, for months, wouldn’t be the best mental health decision. He had been afraid, for half a second, that spending time with Eliot would be some kind of trigger as well, but thankfully, it hasn’t been like that at all.

The Monster had worn Eliot’s face and eyes, but there are people, Quentin thinks, that you know subliminally: the way they breathe, their little gestures and touches, the nuances of their voice across the emotional spectrum. When Eliot hadn’t been there, the Monster had been viscerally disconcerting: the closest facsimile of Eliot there was in the world, but so, so wrong. It doesn’t work in reverse, though. Now that Eliot’s back, there’s no chance of mistaking _him_ for the Monster.

Eliot rolls his eyes, but sticks to water after the second glass of wine. “Speaking of self-care,” he says. “If Margo and I find out you’re not taking good care of this brand-new body built for you…”

“You’ll what?” Quentin asks, when Eliot doesn’t continue.

He laughs a little ruefully. “Fuck, sorry, I just realized I sound like my dad when he got his one and only new tractor. Like I wanted to take that heap of junk on a joyride.”

Quentin must be silent a moment too long, absorbing that, because Eliot glances over and then. His face freezes comically.

“Tractor?” Quentin asks.

Eliot seems to unfreeze, although he still seems rattled. “Uh, right. So, yeah, grew up on a farm, never told you that, thought I did, I guess.”

“What the fuck,” Quentin says, because yeah, he figured Eliot hadn’t grown up in the most supportive environment, from the few snippets of his childhood he’s let slip, but “Eliot plus farm” is not a particularly coherent image for his post-resurrection brain to handle.

Maybe it’s not the most appropriate reply to a confession like that, Quentin worries belatedly, but then Eliot literally says, regaining some of his normal tone, “Thank you, Q. _That_ is the ideal response. It means I’ve done my job correctly. And on that note, if you mention this highly exclusive scoop to anyone ever, I’ll kill you. Brand spanking new body or no.”

Eliot’s smiling again, though, and resting his arm idly on Quentin’s forearm, which means Quentin feels comfortable enough to ask, incredulously, “When the fuck did you think you told me that?” It seems like the sort of consciously repressed tidbit Eliot would relate on purpose, if he absolutely had to, not accidentally.

He’s just teasing, casting around for something to say that isn’t too probing, but for some reason, it makes Eliot blanch again. He recovers more quickly this time, though. “Just forgot you weren’t in Fillory for the magic-less farming debacle, that’s all. Ah, my dear departed days as High King of that fine land,” he laments.

“Yeah, what a lark,” Quentin says, and the conversation moves on.

But much later, as they're clearing up dishes in the kitchen, Eliot says, "Hey. You remember when we went to see Umber, and I was trying so hard to get back to Fillory somehow, because. You know?”

“You said Fillory was your home,” Quentin recalls, just going with the non sequitur, because random conversational turns feel less tortuous at midnight. It’s like, a rule.

“Yeah,” Eliot says, and for a moment it seems like he’s not going to go on. But then, he continues, “It saved my life, you know. Henry Fogg asked me what I thought would happen, when I stumbled into another land in a drunken stupor and tripped on a crown, and the truth is, I honestly thought I would die.”

“El…”

“Yeah, okay, but. A knife told me that I was High King in my blood, and you put a crown on my head, and the weight of it saved my life. I had to try, so I kept trying. My own people tried to assassinate me, and then the gods kicked me out, and I tried to get back. I got back and then I was ousted from the throne, and then deposed in a landslide election by Bambi. And then I was possessed by a monster, and when I woke up, you were dead, and I went back again.”

“Okay,” Quentin says, not entirely sure where this is leading.

“I—it’s always been easier for me to believe that I never had a home, not the way other people did.” He doesn’t mention the farm again, but he doesn’t have to. “And I told myself I didn’t need one, that I didn’t need to come from anywhere, not to become the person I was going to be. But then, Brakebills was the first place I ever felt like… and Fillory saved my life. They both became my home. So when Fillory was in trouble, I owed it. I wanted to help.” 

“Yeah. I get that.”

“But, Q. I’m not a king anymore, and I don’t think I want to be. But if I don’t stay in Fillory, where do I go? I can’t see myself at Brakebills either, anymore. So I’m just homeless, again. Except, this time, I know what it’s like to have a home.”

Margo’s right to be worried. Eliot does sound sad. And he _is_ telling Quentin about it.

“I don’t know,” he says. He’s thinking about Brakebills again, about going back to the way things were. “Home is this weird idea, because like, is it the place you come from? Where you stay most of the time? Or the place you keep coming back to, no matter where else you go, throughout your life?”

“It’s the place where you feel like you belong,” Eliot answers quietly, and he sounds terse, the way he always does when he’s biting down on a feeling.

“But maybe that’s something you have to build for yourself as you go. With the things, and the people, you love. And only you know if that’s still in Fillory, or Brakebills, or somewhere else, for you now. It doesn’t have to be static.”

“Yeah. You give good advice, Q.” Quentin hears the unspoken “Why don’t you take it yourself?” loud and clear, and it’s not wrong. Hasn’t he been feeling as homeless, as _self_less, since he got back? He needs to figure out what he wants his life to look like _now_, he realizes, even if it’s not the same as it was before.

Eliot adds, “And you’re right. I mean, if Bambi didn’t desperately want to stay on and rule in Fillory, I don’t think I’d go back, this time. And Brakebills wouldn’t have been home without her, either. Or without, well. Don’t get a big head, but.” He casts Quentin a look.

“You know how prone I am to overinflated self-esteem,” Quentin snarks, but he’s smiling. “You’ll get there, El. You’ve just got to think about what you want to do. And so do I.” Maybe it’s just always easier to comfort and believe in someone else, but for the first time in a long time, it doesn’t seem like an insurmountable task for Quentin, either.

“You love magic,” Eliot says suddenly. “Just listening to you talk about it… fuck Fillory, and fuck Brakebills too, but don’t let it go, okay?”

It’s like Eliot is speaking Quentin’s thoughts out loud, just as he settles the idea in his own mind. “Hey,” he says, putting a clean coffee mug on the counter. “Break this.” For a moment, he remembers breaking model airplanes at his dad’s, with the Monster, but the pang is transient. This is different. It doesn’t feel like going backwards.

Eliot doesn’t question him, just pushes the mug off the counter with a deliberate, telegraphed gesture, like a cat. It shatters on the floor.

“Now, pick a piece, any piece, and hide it. I won’t look,” Quentin says, closing his eyes for effect.

“What is this, a magic trick?” Eliot asks, fond smile in his voice again, presumably floating a piece off the ground and pocketing it. “Done.”

Quentin opens his eyes. “Take it to Fillory, while you figure things out. Keep it safe. I’m going to work on mending the rest, here.”

“For your thesis,” Eliot says slowly, another statement as question.

“Maybe. I just. Maybe I can’t go back to Brakebills full-time yet, or ever. But you’re right. This is important to me. There’s no harm in like, doing some research, talking to a few professors, part-time, right? It’ll give me something to do.”

“‘Minor Mending Across Worlds’? Suitably dramatic title,” Eliot offers.

“Well, yeah. If I work on it with one piece in Fillory, will my magic draw that piece back here? Or will I be able to recreate it from the negative space left behind?” It’s not a full thesis question, but it’s a place to start.

“Q, I’m starting to believe that if anyone could do it, it would be you,” Eliot says. There’s something hopeful and frightened in his eyes. He takes a breath. “Listen—”

That’s when Julia walks in, though, and Eliot takes his leave soon after, seemingly forgetting about whatever he was going to say. Quentin walks him the few steps to the clock, which makes him feel like he’s walking his prom date to the bedroom next door, but the awkwardness dissipates when Eliot hugs him without hesitation. “Come see us, okay? Keep me posted on how your studies go.”

“Really?”

“Come on, I’m _fascinated_ to hear about your research. After all, I’m such an integral part of it; I expect to see my name in the acknowledgements.” He pats his pocket, where he must have tucked the fragment of the mug, and vanishes through the portal.

“Studies?” Julia asks, from where she’s standing somewhere behind him. When Quentin turns around, she’s giving him a kind of odd look. It transforms into joy, however, when he explains his idea of going back to school part-time, doing independent research and study on his own terms. She agrees to bully the faculty and administration with him, although she points out that they have absolutely nowhere to stand if they try to reject Quentin, who is literally responsible for their continued ability to teach magic.

She says that, and Quentin thinks, if he had died for good, it would have _meant something_. A clear-cut sacrifice, easy to assign worth or value: Eliot saved, magic back in the world.

Quentin’s alive. It’s not as simple an equation.

But he’s here, isn’t he? He gets to hear Julia theorize about the highest levels of magic, and see Alice go up against centuries of autocracy in the Library. He’s going to watch Margo and Fen revolutionize the rule of Fillory, and Kady unite hedge covens that have always been at odds. Sure, it feels a bit like he’s living by proxy, vicariously through the achievements of his friends, but he’s living, isn’t he?

As for Eliot… it’s not that he’s happy that Eliot feels as fucked up and aimless as he does. It’s just that it gives Quentin something to _do_ and worry about that’s important, but not urgent. Eliot’s sad and lost, in some ways, but he’s okay; he’s not possessed, or trapped on another world, or dying. They can portal back and forth and chat, like normal friends do, about their problems. They’re not alone; they can find their way, together.

Quentin doesn’t know why he’s here, or what his purpose is. But if Eliot’s quiet when he comes into the apartment, or the circles under his eyes seem deeper and darker, Quentin can ramble about his most recent attempts at mending the mug until the lines ease a little, and Eliot’s face softens into a fond smile.

(And if Quentin wakes up shivering, unsure of where he is, the blankets fallen away from his body, and it feels like the moment he woke up from the dead again… he can take a few steps into Fillory, say “I didn’t sleep well,” and Eliot will enlist his help in some involved task or share the latest developments in the Fen/Margo/Josh drama until the anxiety resolves.)

He looks at the cup he’s partially mended, with its conspicuous missing piece, and thinks about the many different ways he can approach fixing it completely, and the frustration and the satisfaction it’ll bring him to try.

Maybe it’ll be the small things that give shape to his narrative, rather than one, dramatic, final sacrifice. But instead of his death, maybe his life can mean something, too.

* * *

So things settle into a routine, and yeah, Eliot looms large in this second life Quentin’s figuring out for himself. But he’s always been an undeniable presence, sort of by his own design, and anyway, their friendship feels so normal and comfortable that it honestly doesn’t occur to Quentin that anybody might take it the wrong way, until, well. Someone takes it the wrong way.

It’s Friday night. Julia’s staying late at Brakebills working on a group project, and will probably not be home over the weekend, but Quentin finishes up some reading in the school library and returns to the apartment to meet up with Eliot. They do switch off between Fillory and Earth, but lately, the apartment has become the hangout of choice. Quentin likes to catch up with Margo, and chat with Fen and Josh, but it seems like there’s always some demand on Eliot’s attention when they’re in the castle, which he would rather avoid.

Beyond that, Quentin has complicated feelings about Fillory. It’s true that the idea of Fillory saved his life, once upon a time, and when the fate of his best friends depended on him tapping into that old love, he was able to do it. But after that conversation with Eliot about home, and what it means, going forward, Quentin isn’t sure he _wants_ to think about Fillory like that anymore. Remembering what it meant to him is all very well, and maybe reconciling that with the terrible disappointment it turned out to be is just part of being an adult, but that doesn’t mean he has to live it and love it the way he used to. You can remember something without reliving it, he thinks, and it feels like freedom.

On the other hand, Eliot’s confided that he gets antsy spending too much time at Brakebills nowadays; when he was possessed, his mental landscape was apparently a revolving loop of his years there, which has soured the memories a bit. So, apartment it is. Sometimes, they get the Earth-side group together, whoever’s free and in town, but tonight, it ends up being just him and Eliot.

It’s late when Eliot turns up, harassed (“Sorry, diplomatic dinner with the talking animals turned into something of a stampede—”), and later still when he gets up to leave. It’s one of the nights when there’s something heavy and tired lurking behind his eyes, even as he’s been joking and laughing his way through his stories of what happened all week, and they linger together by the clock, reluctant for the respite of their time together to be over.

“It’s late, do you want to…?”

“I’m sorta tired, can I just…?”

For a second, Quentin’s about to suggest that Eliot just stay in his room, before he realizes that would be a little weird, since the apartment actually has a second bedroom that no one’s using. It’s Julia’s in name, but in reality, more of a guest room than anything now that she’s at Brakebills so much.

“Here. You can stay in Julia’s room,” he says, leading the way.

“Excuse me,” Eliot replies. “I believe that the Constitutional Monarchy of Fillory, of which I am an honored representative, is financing your humble abode. So I think that whatever room you’re offering me is already mine.” He opens the door before Quentin can, and peers inside. “However, as it’s sadly devoid of taste, we can continue to call it Julia’s for now. I’m appalled. Is this what my tax-Fillorian-currency-units are buying?”

“Have you ever even paid taxes in your life?”

“I’ve had them taken out in trade,” Eliot says, raising an eyebrow. “I mean, I have done a _lot_ of lying back and thinking of Fillory.”

“Right,” Quentin says, pushing Eliot in so that he can follow.

The room is pretty bare, actually. Neat and tidy, but lacking in personality. Or maybe it just feels starker and smaller because Eliot’s flung himself down on to the bed dramatically and takes up so much space by contrast.

It’s well past midnight. Quentin should probably take his leave now, and let Eliot get some rest, or even get some sleep himself, but he doesn’t want the night to be over. He feels like there’s still more to be said, somehow, the way you want to stay up talking all night at a sleepover about everything and nothing. So he hangs around awkwardly until Eliot rolls on to his side and props himself up on his elbow, facing him.

“What are you standing all the way over there for? Get over here,” he commands, and Quentin comes to sit on the edge of the bed. “No, not like you’re sitting a candlelight vigil at my sickbed. Haven’t we done enough of that for each other?”

They really have, Quentin thinks, and swings his legs up, lets his body fall back so he’s staring at the ceiling. He can feel Eliot looking down at him from the side.

“Better,” Eliot says. “Like a proper twelve-year-old sleepover.”

“I was just thinking that,” Quentin admits.

“Not that I was ever invited to one. I think the town elders were all collectively afraid I would corrupt the crop of good straight boys, even before I understood what kind of corruption they meant.” He throws it out casually, obviously not meaning for Quentin to pick up the thread and continue the conversation, but. Sleepover rules, right? The lights are low, it’s approaching the witching hour, and nothing you say can be held against you in the morning. It makes it easier to be vulnerable, to find intimacy, for lack of a better word. You can ask questions you wouldn’t normally ask, share truths you wouldn’t normally speak out loud. Eliot’s childhood definitely falls into those categories.

“Yeah?” he prompts, rolling on to his side to face Eliot too.

“Yeah,” Eliot says. “Well, I mean, I made up for the deprivation with the _college_ sleepovers. And I really _did_ corrupt more than my fair share of straight boys, so in retrospect, they were right to be concerned.” He grins a little. It’s a joke, and Eliot clearly means it at his own expense, but it rubs Quentin the wrong way.

“Corrupt,” Quentin scoffs.

“Yes, well, they enjoyed it,” Eliot says dismissively, which is sort of exactly the point Quentin is trying to make.

“Um, are you sure they were straight, then?”

“You mean I should say ‘previously straight’?” Eliot considers, still sounding annoyingly amused. “I don’t know, I didn’t stick around to see their sexual histories post-me.”

“Just, you shouldn’t say you _corrupted_ them, or even like, converted them.” It’s not fair to either Eliot, or these other random guys Quentin doesn’t know. He doesn’t know why he’s pushing it, but he feels like he has to. There’s something he wants to get out. “I know I wasn’t there, but. Maybe you helped them realize something about themselves they didn’t see before. Or maybe they always knew, but were afraid to act on it, before they met you. Or maybe they knew and they were just fine with it themselves, but it wasn’t like, central to how they saw their own identity, at that time, and it had nothing to do with you. You know?”

Eliot gives him a weird look, but grows serious in turn. “I—I guess I never gave them that much thought, Q.”

“I get it.” He really does. Growing up ostracized and punished for being yourself — some people respond to that by hiding away, others by wearing the objectionable parts of their identity unapologetically, gloriously, openly. Must be hard for either group to understand the other, and no prizes for guessing which one Eliot falls into. “But not everyone is like you,” he adds.

Predictably, Eliot answers, “No one is like me,” and it makes Quentin smile, eases the air between them. This time, _he’s_ about to let the subject drop when, less predictably, Eliot goes on, “I should have, maybe. Thought more about it. I think… I was afraid.” He flicks his eyes at Quentin, then looks away again, hesitating, or choosing his words carefully. “Like, if they didn’t want me, by light of day. It’d be easier if I’d already decided that was going to happen, because they were just straight boys and I was just their wild night experiment. I could uh, control the situation.” He bites his lip, then smiles away the sting ruefully. “To be fair, some of them really were assholes the next morning. So no regrets for not wasting my thoughts on _them_.”

“Fair enough,” Quentin agrees.

“Some of them, though… if I’d been braver, maybe it would have been different.” Eliot shrugs as much as he can in his current sprawled out position, but he sounds almost wistful.

Sleepover rules, Quentin thinks. Bare a truth for a truth. “I never really came out,” he says in a rush. He doesn’t look at Eliot, unsure whether the expression on his face will be surprised or unsurprised. He’s not sure which he would prefer, actually. “Not to—to Julia, or my dad, or to you, any of you. I mean, Julia knows, and you—well.” He makes an indeterminate hand movement meant to convey “remember that time we had a threesome under the influence, never talked about it again, and wrecked my relationship, but now I’m back with my girlfriend and it seems like we’re letting bygones be bygones?” and figures Eliot will understand what he means. “And I guess, to someone like you, coming from where you… come from, not talking about it might make it seem like I’m ashamed, or repressed, or unsure of what I want, or whatever. But it’s really not like that?”

“Okay,” Eliot says.

“There’s just always been so much _wrong_ with me,” Quentin says, finding the words as he goes along. Eliot makes a little sound, but doesn’t interrupt otherwise. “The, uh, depression stuff, and anxiety, and generally just being socially maladjusted, like Margo would say, or weird, or whatever. So liking guys too, or finding anyone attractive, or more like _sympathetic_, finding someone I felt _connected_ to—it was always a good thing, not something that I had to stress about, or talk about too much. If anything, it was a respite from overthinking everything and feeling like shit about myself, because it made me feel like a normal person. Someone who could just love other people, and be with them. So I’ve always kind of gone for it, the few times I’ve ever really liked anyone and hoped they might like me back.”

He thinks about standing in front of Alice, falling in so deep, so fast, and trying to convince her that what they were feeling was real. She’s the most important example, but there were a couple of others, in college. They didn’t pan out, but he doesn’t regret taking the chance. “Maybe I’m super awkward and intense about it, but I’m like that about everything, so why the fuck not try? Maybe I’ll get shot down, but maybe I’ll get something real and beautiful out of what I feel, for once.”

The only exception in his history is Julia, but that’s because somewhere, he always knew his feelings were a hopeless crush, and that their friendship wasn’t worth wrecking over it. It would take a lot of hope, and more than a crush, nothing short of _true love_, to want to risk a friendship that was already so important to him.

When Quentin looks up, Eliot is staring at him, expression unreadable. “‘Why the fuck not,’” he echoes, then sighs. “You’re really brave, Q. I’m not sure you can understand it, but not everyone is like you, either.”

“Yeah. Right.”

“Seriously,” Eliot says, and looks like he’s about to say something else, but then he doesn’t. He untucks his elbow and lets his head touch the pillow instead, closing his eyes. “Thanks for telling me.” His lashes are very dark and long at this angle, and his face looks soft in repose. He’s been softer and more open overall, ever since Quentin got back.

“Yeah. Thanks for telling me, too.”

And look, Quentin _knows_ Eliot loves him, all right? For a guy who prides himself on caring for nothing, it’s blatantly obvious how much he cares for the people he loves. Obviously he had mourned Quentin. Almost certainly blamed himself. And here he is, willingly talking about feelings in a way he would never have done before, like Quentin’s death had unlocked a deep wellspring of emotion that had previously only ever surfaced in fits and spurts, when it bubbled over.

Maybe it’s actually the trauma of his possession, not a response to Quentin’s death. Or maybe this softness is just what Eliot’s growing into, as he gets older, and as life (fingers crossed) calms down. Regardless, it’s a warm, lovely thought: being here to see the person Eliot settles into, the way he’ll be in ten years, or twenty. Quentin’s _not dead_. He’s living; he’s here to see the changes, and that’s a good thing.

“I’m tired,” Eliot mumbles.

“Me too,” Quentin says. “It’s late. Night, El, I’m going to—” He should get up and go to his own room, but he’s really warm and comfortable. He’s happy.

“Mm,” Eliot agrees, and waves his hand without even looking. The lights go out.

Quentin will get up in a few minutes. Just a few more minutes.

* * *

When Quentin wakes up, sunlight is streaming into the room, and there’s a warm, solid weight over his heart, and something soft is tickling his chin. He blinks his eyes open slowly and realizes that he’s in Julia’s room, and Eliot is tucked up next to him, still asleep. It’s actually pretty adorable, Quentin thinks hazily. For all that Eliot likes to sprawl out and flaunt his unfairly long legs at every opportunity, he apparently sometimes sleeps curled up in a tight little ball, like he’s trying to burrow into something for comfort and warmth. In this instance, the something is Quentin, since he’s angled himself diagonally on the bed, resting his head on Quentin’s chest and knees up against Quentin’s side, with his normally perfectly coiffed hair in dark, wild disarray under Quentin’s chin.

Quentin shifts a little and Eliot makes a displeased sound, snuggling in closer. “Shh,” Quentin hushes, and brings a hand up to pet his head, smoothing the culprit curl away from his chin in the process. He’s thinking that the tickling sensation was what woke him up, and is about to close his eyes again, when he has the sudden awareness that he’s being watched.

Julia’s standing in the doorway, mouth slightly open and eyes wide. “What the fuck?” she mouths.

Which is how Quentin ends up spending far too many minutes awkwardly trying to extricate himself without disturbing Eliot’s much needed rest, leaving him with a pillow to curl up around, so that Julia can whisper-yell at him in the kitchen.

“Q, what the fuck?”

“Um. I’m sorry? You said you weren’t going to be back this weekend, and it was getting late, so I told El he could stay in your room.”

“And crawled into bed to cuddle with him in case he needed a security blanket in a new place? Look, I’m not judging, you looked _adorable_, but what would Alice say?”

“Oh. What? Why would she…” Quentin asks reflexively, before he connects the dots. “Oh, no, it’s not like we were, like, doing anything. Come on! We just stayed up late talking, and we fell asleep. You and I have done it dozens of times!” They were fully clothed, for fuck’s sake, and they’re all adults. A little innocent, affectionate cuddling is hardly damning.

“Yeah, but that’s different,” Julia says, like it’s obvious, which it’s not.

“How? El and I are friends, too.”

She stares at him. “Because Alice didn’t break up with you because you and I slept together? Along with another one of your friends?”

Oh, that. Right. “That’s not—look, Alice and Eliot are okay, now, and she knows I—we—aren’t like that.” Quentin knows he hurt her horribly, but Alice isn’t insecure about that, is she? He fucked up, but it’s not like she thinks that he would do that to her now, or she would hardly have wanted to try again, right? “It was just a—how did you know about it, anyway?”

“You were dead, Q. We did actually, like, talk about you, sometimes?”

“And _that_ was what you all reminisced about?” Uh, that’s weird. He tries to imagine Alice, Eliot, and Margo swapping stories about what he’s like in bed, and the image doesn’t compute. He doesn’t know what to think about that, but it makes him squirm.

Now Julia looks a little uncomfortable. “I mean, it was kind of relevant. For the body spell. Which had a component of sense-memory, like, people who _knew your body best_.”

“Okay, that’s weird. That is like, super creepy.”

“Not like that,” she clarifies. “Well, not entirely like that. It was like, I knew you the longest, so my memories mattered. But Alice knew you in a different way, so her part mattered too. So it came down to Margo or Eliot, as the final piece, and so they talked about who remembered what. Not just sexually, but like, in life. But anyway, that’s why it came up. _Threesome_, really, Q?” She’s grinning a little stupidly now. He rolls his eyes.

“Oh my God, Julia. It was a long time ago, and we were really drunk and fucked up on magic, all right? And clearly it ruined everything with Alice, and then Alice… it’s just, not a good memory, not fun, not the way you’re thinking.”

“Okay, okay, I’m sorry,” she says. “I just can’t believe you didn’t tell me about it.”

“Well, we weren’t exactly talking at the time. And then when we were, there was a lot of other stuff going on. Besides, I don’t remember a lot of it, anyway. Just flashes.” He’s lowered his voice, and glances at the door of the bedroom, where Eliot is still sleeping. It’s stupid, since obviously Eliot knows it happened, but they don’t really talk about it. The closest they’ve ever come was Quentin’s oblique mention last night, and that feels different, somehow, than the knowledge being open for discussion, out in the world.

Julia follows his gaze, and keeps her voice low too. “But Q. You and Eliot. There’s seriously nothing going on there?”

“What?” Quentin says. “No! Why would you—”

“You guys are just… you’re really touchy-feely together, you know?”

“We’re _friends_,” he repeats. “And Eliot’s a touchy person. Not like touchy-irritable, but touchy, you know. And I’m—” Well, Quentin likes the affection. He likes to be touched. Innocently, not like that.

“Feely?” Julia suggests, like an asshole. Quentin groans. She lifts her hands up in surrender. “Okay, maybe I’m wrong. But really, you guys are kind of intimate and weird. I’ve noticed it more, since you came back. And since I found out about the threesome thing, at first I thought it was just like, you slept together that one time and have some unresolved tension there? But you’re not like that with Margo at all.”

“Like what?”

“Like, you see him practically every week even though you literally live in different worlds. You go to Fillory, and when you get back, you always tell me about something ‘El said,’ or did, even though you saw the others too. And the way you look at him, sometimes, it’s like—come on, Q, I’ve known you forever. I know what you look like with a crush.”

She kindly doesn’t mention his onetime crush on her. Small mercy in this deeply disturbing conversation.

“Jules, you are way off the mark, here. Maybe you’re too used to looking into people’s souls with your goddess powers, and forgot how to observe as, you know, a human.”

Now it’s Julia’s turn to roll her eyes. All right, maybe that was kind of dickish of him. “Too soon, Q.”

“I know. Sorry.”

“Look, I was scared,” she says more seriously. “When he was possessed, and you were so focused on getting him back, and had to deal with the Monster wearing his face, and daring him to strangle you, and kill you… I’ll never forgive myself for that, for letting you spiral that much. I know you’re _you_, and you care, and you want to save everyone, but it felt more intense, somehow, because it was him. And Eliot, when you were… I don’t know him as well, and he keeps his cards close to his chest, so it’s harder to say. But I worked with him, on the spell, and he seemed really empty. Just drained.”

Quentin swallows. He doesn’t like to think about it, either the way he was before his death, or the way his friends had to deal with the aftermath. The only person he’s felt comfortable talking about it with, ironically, given this conversation, is Eliot.

“So anyway, if you tell me there’s nothing there, I believe you. But I don’t think I’m that crazy for wondering. And I’m just saying. Even if there is, and it’s complicated, you can tell me anything. I know I’ve failed as your best friend before, but I’m here for you.”

“You didn’t fail, Julia. You know it’s not like that.” She shrugs. He sighs. “And look. When you lay it all out, I guess I can see where you’re coming from. But I don’t know what to tell you. El and I aren’t like that; we never have been. Maybe when I first met him, I was, like, a little starstruck, or whatever. I admired him. I mean, don’t tell him that, he’ll never let me hear the end of it, but. That’s not how it is, now.”

Quentin thinks about it. He _has_ been spending a lot of time with Eliot lately. But a lot of it is just catching up, since Quentin’s death and Eliot’s possession hadn’t left a lot of time for them to spend together in the past year. As for the more important stuff, Quentin doesn’t know. It’s just easier to share things with Eliot than it is with other people, especially since they both got back.

“He just makes me feel better, you know?” Quentin continues, trying to put it into words. “Not like a crush, and not because he’s a better friend than you, or any of you, but it’s like, you have Brakebills. Alice has the Library, Margo has Fillory. Kady’s got the hedges. And I’ve been feeling kind of, lost, I guess? Like I don’t know why I’m back, or how I got back, and what that means, what my purpose is. And I guess he’s been going through something similar, post-Monster.” He doesn’t elaborate; Eliot’s secrets are not his to share. “He makes it better,” he says again. “Like even if we’re lost, at least we’re together.”

Julia is staring at him with her eyes wide and mouth open again. She’s about to say something when they hear the bedroom door open.

“Fuck, I almost wish we hadn’t fixed the time fuckery, because then I’d have an excuse to be late for this council meeting today. Margo will kill me; I’m already on shaky ground with her because she thinks I’m going too soft when it comes to border negotiations. And Fen will look disappointed, which is basically worse. Charge my phone while I’m gone?” Eliot asks as he reaches Quentin, handing it over without pausing for breath.

Quentin fumbles when their hands touch, hyper-aware of Julia next to them. “Sure,” he says, trying to sound unbothered, because he _is_.

Eliot doesn’t seem to notice. “You’re coming to Fillory next week, right? You can geek out over the delegation of mermaids from the outer lands. Besides, Bambi’s been complaining that you don’t come see her enough.”

Quentin carefully avoids Julia’s gaze. “Margo hasn’t come to see me that much either,” he counters. She’s always busy when he comes to Fillory, too, so it makes sense that he talks more about seeing Eliot, Quentin thinks. They spend more time together, that’s all.

“She’s a fucking _king_,” Eliot replies. “I’m speaking for her because I know that’s what she would say. Between you and me, prolonged High Kingship has kind of gone to her head.”

“Right. Like you never threw the title around.”

“How about you shut it, Former King Quentin the Absent?” Eliot asks, imperiously, but with no sting in his words at all, and Quentin grins, before he remembers that Julia’s watching, and tries to straighten his face out. Eliot has made his way back to the clock in the corner of the room. “Hi Julia. Thank you for the use of your space,” he says, very formally, except for the friendly smile.

“Sure,” she says, nothing more than that, but still, Quentin feels weirdly conscious of her presence, and his own behavior. Ugh, this whole bizarre conversation about Eliot has thrown him off balance.

“Hey,” Eliot adds, turning to Quentin, with a softer smile that’s just for him. “Thanks. For my first ever preteen sleepover.”

“Any time,” Quentin promises, and for a second, he forgets about Julia, about what expression she might be judging on his face, about anything except watching Eliot disappear through the clock.

* * *

He does go to Fillory. But first, he gets hold of Alice (which is harder to do nowadays, given the interdimensional nature of her workplace), feeling a little guilty that he hasn’t seen as much of her in the past few weeks.

And then Quentin forces himself to ruin their perfectly pleasant date night by embarking on a very unpleasant conversation that he thought there was absolutely no reason for them to have.

This is all Julia’s fault.

“Alice,” Quentin starts.

“Yes?” she asks.

“Can I ask you… before. When we were together, and I—with Eliot, and Margo—you know,” he stutters out, and he sees from the way her eyes shutter a little that she knows what he’s getting at.

“What about it?”

Okay. In for a penny, in for a pound. “How did you forgive me for it? The way I hurt you? I mean, if you have,” he adds quickly. “It feels like we’re… past it, at least, but.”

“I mean, I don’t feel angry, anymore,” she says slowly. “It still hurts, if I think about that day. But with everything that came after, everything we’ve been through, it’s like you said. I want you in my life. That felt more important than being mad at you for something you did to hurt me a long time ago.”

“Right,” Quentin says, reassured. “I just hope you know that I wouldn’t do something like that to you again.”

“Okay…” Alice says, and he hurries to clarify.

“Julia just said that—” Quentin knows he wasn’t doing anything wrong, exactly, with Eliot, but as he’s about to tell Alice what led him to bring this topic up at all, he switches tack mid-sentence. “She mentioned that it came up, when you guys did the spell for my body. The sense-memory aspect of it. So I just wanted to make sure we were okay.”

Alice still looks faintly troubled, but she says, “Oh, I see. We’re okay, Q.”

There’s a long silence. “Oh hey,” Quentin says, breaking it with magical theory, always a good option with Alice. “The sense-memory thing. I know a body isn’t the same as small objects, but it’s come up a lot in my research. You know, recreating missing pieces of a broken object from memory, if all the original parts aren’t available, or whatever.”

Her eyes light up. “Yeah, that’s actually where I got the idea to modify the spell Julia found.” She goes on, but Quentin’s mind wanders a little. If objects, and bodies, remember what they used to be in a physical sense, what about the soul? Everything that makes him _him_, his spirit, his Shade, was it restored to him whole? Blown apart and then recreated in some way, if it was destroyed beyond reckoning?

“Q?” Alice asks. Oh, he’s zoned out.

“Sorry. Just. My spirit. We never figured out how it came back, did we? I remember you were looking into it.”

“No,” she admits. “It bothered me for a long time, but eventually, I let it go. Maybe Eliot’s right, and it was just some god or the universe doing us a favor.” It isn’t like Alice to let things go, and true to form, she doesn’t sound satisfied about it, but if she couldn’t find an answer, Quentin supposes, no one could. “You haven’t been worrying about it, have you?”

“No, no,” Quentin says. “I’m just glad to be here, that’s all,” he adds, and she smiles. 

The next day, though, when he steps through the portal and wanders through the castle, searching for Eliot, or Margo, he considers it. He hasn’t consciously been dwelling on it. Once in a while, he still wakes up in the middle of the night, cold and terrified, like he’s been drenched in icy water that’s sunk into his chest, but it’s happening less frequently. He’d thought he was still lost and figuring things out, and maybe he is, but in the process, he’s stumbled on _happiness_, he realizes. He’s forgotten to worry about how he got there. He’s forgotten to be _afraid_.

Quentin stops in his tracks. Somehow, he’s ended up outside the room that served as his resurrection chamber, and it hits him out of nowhere: the cold, the suffocation, the icy grip of fear. _He’s waking up_.

“Fuck,” he breathes.

“Q?” It’s Eliot, sounding concerned. Quentin realizes he’s half collapsed against the stone walls of the hallway.

“How did you know?” Quentin whispers. They’ve talked about the Monster, and they’ve talked about feeling lost, post-resurrection or post-possession, but neither of them has really gotten into the ritual that brought Quentin back to life, at least not since he first woke up in Fillory and wondered if he’d finally managed to kill himself.

“How did I know what?” Eliot looks at Quentin, and then into the room Quentin is standing outside of, sounding puzzled.

“That it was me? When I—I remember being really cold, and Alice saying the spell wasn’t working. Margo was trying to keep it going, but you said to let it go. _He’s waking up_. How did you know?”

“Oh. You mean. I,” Eliot starts, taken aback. He recovers himself, and goes on, calmly, “I know Margo’s magic. What else would have interfered with her ability to keep the body cold except something warming it up? Ergo, life. Ergo, spirit of Q.”

It sounds simple when he puts it like that, but what a gamble. What an intuition. What if he’d been _wrong_? What if it wasn’t really _Quentin_?

Quentin tries to breathe through the rising panic. “I can’t be here right now,” he manages, and Eliot takes his arm without another word and drags him outside.

“Q, what’s this about?” Eliot asks, once they’re safely in one of the deserted garden walks, and Quentin can breathe again.

“I just… I’m just worried,” he confesses, staring into the shrubbery along the sides of the pathway. “Everything’s been fine, you know? I’m working on my project, I’m working on feeling better, I’m… but then I read about sense-memory in objects, or I remember waking up in that room, and _I don’t know how I got there._ How do I know if I made it back whole? And I wonder, is that why it was so hard for me to feel like myself? Am I missing something important?”

“Like what, your conscience?” Eliot asks lightly, though his eyes are sharp. “You’re not feeling any strangely murderous impulses, are you? Or is this more like a ‘Buffy fucking soulless Spike’ kind of ‘came back wrong’?”

Quentin laughs a little. “No, nothing like that.”

“I mean, I’m not sure I understood her self-hatred on that score. Angelus, nay, but soulless Spike? Yay.”

Sometimes it’s like Eliot’s not even listening to the words you’re saying, except for the part where he wraps his arm around you and tucks you into his chest, and you feel safe, and warm, and like you can keep telling him anything, forever. No fear of judgment.

“I know I’m not shadeless like Julia was, or like Alice, when she was a Niffin.”

“Hence the emotional regurgitation right now,” Eliot says, but he’s leaning his cheek on the top of Quentin’s head, all comforting, as they stroll.

“It’s just that, I’m back. And I don’t know how I’m back. And things were going well, and I’d half forgotten about it, but then I remember… Julia and Alice, the two people you’d really expect to know their shit about the ritual they performed, don’t know why I’m _me_. They hadn’t figured out how to get around the soul issue. But then it was like, bam!”

“Mm-hmm.”

“Magic always has a price. I guess I’m just waiting to pay it. I’m feeling better, sometimes, I’m even _happy_, but what if… like, is there some malevolent deity out there with a leash they can pull, and I’ll have to do their bidding?”

“Kinky.”

“I’m serious, Eliot.”

Eliot pulls back, then, just so he can look Quentin in the eyes again. They’ve stopped walking. “Q. Dear, sweet, little Q. Has it occurred to you that _that_ might be the price?”

“What might?”

“That feeling like every second of happiness you have is borrowed time. Like you can’t let yourself believe in all the good things in your life, because they might be taken away at any moment, and then it’ll hurt more. Like maybe you never deserved them in the first place.”

Quentin’s mouth has gone dry. He doesn’t know exactly what Eliot is talking about, but the _way_ he’s talking…

“Quentin. You do deserve them, okay? Don’t live your life like that. Like you’re waiting for the axe to fall.”

“You’re the one who got hit by an axe, so I guess you’d know,” Quentin deflects, fitting his hand over Eliot’s stomach, very gently, healed though he is. There had been so much blood, and so little time, and he had run off with Alice and the other Penny without saying a word to Eliot. He wonders what it would have been like, if he had lived, then, and Eliot had died, and that had been his last memory. That he hadn’t even bothered to say a word. How much it would have hurt. How much it _must_ have hurt Eliot, who’ll never tell.

“I do know,” Eliot says, a quick and complicated expression flickering over his face. “That’s why—you have a chance, to live a life you thought you’d never get to have, to be _happy_. It’s hard to trust, I get it, but don’t waste it wondering if it’s real or not. You’ll regret not taking your chance, and I don’t want that for you.”

What chance does Eliot regret not taking? Quentin feels the muted anguish of his soft, matter-of-fact words set off a fine, trembling vibration throughout his own body. It calms his own fear, it gives him purpose again. He wants to comfort; he wants to listen; he wants to _help_.

But Eliot’s closing in on himself, sealing the cracks, mouth settling into something determinedly casual. He’s done talking about this, whatever it is.

There are times when you can push Eliot, and times when the better part of valor is to retreat. This is the latter, Quentin knows. They’re not sharing the hushed, friendly intimacy of a bottle of wine by the fire, bandying raw, uncomfortable truths into the wee hours of the night. This is broad daylight, and Eliot doesn’t like feeling exposed.

All the same, as Eliot tries to start walking again, away from the conversation, Quentin tugs him back with his hand, even as he diffuses with his words. “Margo’s right, you know.”

“How do you mean?”

“You _have_ gone soft.” He’s teasing, but he means it too, and it’s not a bad thing at all. This side of Eliot, not new, exactly, but which he’s daring to let Quentin see, more frequently… it’s nice, to feel trusted with that.

“You take that back, Coldwater,” Eliot says, but he’s smiling in that way he has, eyes shining, like every emotion he’ll deny he feels and every word he’ll never say light him up from the inside out, resplendent, _beautiful_. And as he tweaks Quentin’s stupid in-between length bangs into his face playfully, Quentin thinks: what if Eliot tucked his hair behind his ear instead, and clasped his neck, and pulled him in, and put his mouth on Quentin’s mouth, and… and…

And that is _really_ not a thought he should be thinking about his best friend. His best friend with whom he had cheated on his girlfriend, albeit in a magic and alcohol fueled haze, years ago.

His heart thumps. The open air feels close. He looks up, and for a second he’s sure he’s going to see everything he’s feeling reflected on Eliot’s face, but Eliot’s smiling down at him, completely unaffected. “You know what it is? I’ve diagnosed your problem, Q.”

“What?” Quentin asks, striving to sound normal. It probably comes out awkward, but that’s normal for him, anyway.

“This,” Eliot says, and flips Quentin’s hair again. “Once your hair grows back out, you’ll feel more like yourself. I’m sorry I didn’t get to appreciate this look at its peak, being possessed by an evil monster at the time, because it seems like it would have been super cute, but it’s way too stylish for you.”

“Yeah. That must be it. Fucking Brian.” He’s talking on autopilot, painfully aware of Eliot’s hands and his height and his everything, oh Jesus, what the fuck is even happening right now?

“You’re _you_, Q. I’d tell you not to worry, but.”

“Yeah. Worrying is sort of my defining characteristic.”

“Mm-hmm. Anxious and high-strung super-nerd. The one we all adore unreasonably, and can’t do without.”

* * *

Shit. _Shit_.

Since when does he feel like this about _Eliot_?

Since always, whispers one part of his mind, and okay, that’s not entirely false. But it’s not entirely true, either, he argues back, and God, he’s going crazy, what is wrong with him?

On the surface, nothing has changed. Eliot is his best friend. He’s tactile and teasing and cutting, and so warm and _good_ underneath all his myriad, cool edges. Eliot cares about him, and Quentin’s a sucker for affection, sure. So yeah, there’s something soft in Eliot’s eyes when he looks at Quentin, a sort of unconditional acceptance and affection that Quentin drinks up greedily, but hasn’t there always been?

There’s something more fleeting too—sharper, hotter—that Quentin only catches sideways sometimes, but it’s not like _that_ wasn’t there, before, either. He remembers meeting Eliot and getting checked out, fairly blatantly. He was pretty oblivious first year at Brakebills, or distracted, understandably, but that doesn’t mean he missed some of Eliot’s once-overs. But they weren’t anything _special_; Eliot’s like that with practically everyone, or at least he was, back then. Quentin felt flattered, if it ever happened, like he’d managed to match his shirt and his jeans in an unexpectedly competent way, but he didn’t think it _meant_ anything.

And well, they did sort of sleep together that one time, but extenuating and traumatic circumstances, much? Quentin spent the hours and days after that event trying to forget it ever happened, and looking away from Eliot.

It’s just that now, he feels like he wants to look directly at him instead. If Quentin hadn’t been with Alice when it happened, if it hadn’t been so blatantly _wrong_, if it just… if they could just see what would have come of it, if they’d had the space and time to let it evolve. Maybe it would’ve just fizzled out, a one-time thing, and they would have lapsed back into friendship, which is what they did anyway. Maybe it would’ve blown the friendship apart messily, to bits, although he doesn’t think that’s likely, actually. Or maybe…

Quentin tries to recalibrate, to reframe his memories to fit this bizarre, new context. It sounds stupid, but the idea has never consciously occurred to him before. Eliot’s his friend, Eliot’s important, Eliot’s safe: his mind generally stops there, content.

But in hindsight, when Eliot was possessed, and Quentin’s world went gray and numb and faded at the edges, and all he could think about was saving him… oh fuck, was this what Julia was trying to tell him? Quentin truly believes that he would have tried as hard to save any one of his friends, even the ones he’s not as close with, but he probably wouldn’t have felt like everything colorful and hopeful in the garden of his heart had wilted and died. And like the very ground beneath his feet, the beliefs holding him together with string and scotch tape, were crumbling to dirt and ash and nothingness, like he had _nothing_ to cling to as his reality fell away except this one, all-consuming need: to save Eliot.

The only time he’s felt anything akin to that, with all his experience of depression and misery and awfulness, is when Alice was dead. So in retrospect, maybe that should have been his first clue.

Even before that, though, there were these moments when everything sharpened to a point after long absence, like when Eliot burst through the door of the Cottage unexpectedly from Fillory, and Quentin leapt at him like he was drawn by an invisible bungee cord and just held on. Like suddenly, for an instant, his body and his mind allowed him to remember how much he _missed_ Eliot when they were apart.

And now, if he’s honest with himself, it’s like that all the time, basically.

Quentin hasn’t really thought about it, but ever since he got back and settled into this second chance at life, they see each other, and all Quentin can think is “next time.” Something happens, and he wants to share it with Eliot. He’d thought it was just because Eliot was feeling as unmoored and aimless as he was, back from possession the way Quentin was back from the dead, and so they were making their meandering way together while everyone else around them had purpose and responsibilities. But perhaps it’s telling that he sees more of Eliot than he does of Alice, his girlfriend, or Julia, his supposed roommate.

And _when_ he sees him, for fuck’s sake. He’s always thought Eliot was attractive, in a “well, duh,” sort of way, but now... Quentin escapes from the garden that afternoon and retreats to his room as soon as he can, but when he catches a glimpse of Eliot in the hall later that evening, it hits him all over again, the _wanting_. He wants to scrape his lips raw on Eliot’s stubble and ruck his tunic up and count the spaces between his ribs with kisses; he wants to push Eliot down into a chair and crawl into his lap and see if the sensation triggers any more flashes of that illicit night they shared. If he did, he wonders, what would Eliot do? Would he hold Quentin more securely and tip his head just so? Would he take charge, arrange Quentin the way he wanted, and just _take_?

Sex hasn’t been a priority for Quentin lately, what with the taking it slow with Alice, and the coming back to life in a strange body that hasn’t felt quite like _his_, and generally being depressed and numb for months and months before that, but it’s like this realization electrifies that new, untouched body with a cattle prod. He’s seized up with the shock of it, and is held on the edge, yearning for the comedown, imagining how he’ll go hot all over and melt into the bonelessness of real, blissful relief.

I’m alive, he thinks, breathless. This is what it feels like; this body is mine, and I’m living in it. He’s living, and it feels… if he let it, it would feel so real, and connected, and _good_. The part of him that he told Eliot about, the one that takes a chance, that just _goes for it_ at the slightest provocation, is chomping at the bit. Give it a shot, why the fuck not? _This could be amazing_.

Julia was right, but she’s wrong too. This isn’t a crush. This is fucking for real _feelings. _Maybe they’ve always been there, like a scroll rolled up and tucked away, but now unfurling to reveal the full, messy, ink-splattered parchment.

Quentin wants to read it all. Write more at the end. Keep going. He wants to know what happens next.

This is a problem. Because Quentin is with Alice right now. And last time he cheated on her (fuck, is he the sort of horrible sleaze who thinks about the _last_ time he cheated on his girlfriend like there’s going to be a _next_ time?), there had been a lot of alcohol, and the emotion bottles, and maybe that didn’t excuse it, but it at least explained it, a bit.

Quentin tries to slow his racing heart, and stymie the tide of hopes and fantasies that have flooded his stupid brain. He needs to be circumspect about this, think about what it all means. Much as his emotions are swelling up and overwhelming him in a way that turns _feeling_ into a sort of desperate emergency, it’s not. He has time. He doesn’t need to run to Eliot right the fuck now, everything akimbo and swirling in his mind, and blurt out a confession he doesn’t even know if he can put into words, however much he wants to.

He can do right by Alice, at least as much as it’s possible in this situation. He can talk to her before he does anything else. And he can figure out whether this is worth potentially jeopardizing his friendship with Eliot (_it’s worth it, it’s worth everything,_ sings his heart).

All this decided, there’s no time like the present. He can send a message to Eliot and Margo on the way to the Fillory clock; he should go back to Earth tonight, while he’s got the nerve. So he packs his few things and opens the door decisively.

Only to find himself face to face with Eliot.

“Hey,” Quentin says, and his voice comes out embarrassingly strangled.

Eliot looks startled to see him too, which is bizarre, since he’s the one who’s at Quentin’s door. “Hey.” There’s a pause while he seems to reboot, then starts again. “Listen, Q, I’ve been thinking. About what you were saying today. And, um. I really need to tell you something.”

Quentin vaguely registers that Eliot sounds a little uncomfortable, but he’s so keyed up himself that he can’t really focus on it. His pulse is racing, and he feels like he’s shaking from the effort of not throwing himself into Eliot’s arms and saying, “I need to tell you something too, and it’s that I think you’re my fucking soulmate, you fucker. You know, if you’re like, okay with that?”

“Alice,” he blurts out instead.

“Uh,” Eliot says, nonplussed, as well he might be, because Quentin is doing the thing where he continues a conversation he was having with himself, not the person he’s talking to right now.

“I need to talk to her,” Quentin clarifies, sort of. “So, I’m going now.”

“Right now,” Eliot says slowly. Oh, right, Quentin had begged off dinner since he was busy having an epiphany slash emotional crisis. It’s actually kind of late.

“Yeah, it’s um. It’s important.”

“Got it,” Eliot says, eyebrows raised. “A middle-of-the-night urgent need to _talk_ to the girlfriend issue. You know, we’re all adults here. You can just say it, Q,” he adds with a grin that doesn’t quite reach his eyes.

“No, it’s um. I just.” Fuck, Quentin is blushing. He’s trying to look at anything except Eliot’s face.

“Wow. You’d better go before you combust,” Eliot says, laughing and gesturing Quentin out the door. He walks with him down the hall, and it’s not until they reach the doorway of the room where the clock stands that Quentin remembers that Eliot wanted to say something to him.

“Oh, did you—you wanted to talk to me, sorry. Is it—is everything okay? Can it wait a few days, or is it—”

“It’s actually not that important,” Eliot interrupts, waving a hand. “In fact, I think it doesn’t really—you know what, never mind.”

“Okay. But I’ll see you soon,” Quentin says, finally finding the courage to meet Eliot’s eyes as they linger together by the door. “I uh, I actually want to talk to you, too, about—you’ll come visit next week, right?”

“Fen!” Eliot says, apropos of nothing.

“What?” Quentin asks, just as the woman in question says, “Hi!” from behind him.

“Fen, I was just about to tell Q about our plan to visit our not-daughter next week.”

“Oh, you decided—”

“Days ago. As I decided days ago, I’m joining Fen for a little expedition. So regrettably, I’ll miss our standing date, Q.”

“Not-daughter? You mean, Fray?” Quentin asks, puzzled and also disappointed, but trying not to be. “I thought she was your aged-up…” He trails off, seeing the way Fen’s face has fallen and Eliot’s expression remains carefully neutral.

“Oh, you missed that, I forgot. Yeah, turns out Fray’s not actually our natural born daughter.”

“What? But Fen was pregnant when she—oh no, don’t cry,” Quentin cuts himself off, looking at Fen in dismay and then to Eliot, pleading for an explanation, help, or both.

“Don’t worry, Q, it’s not you,” he reassures, even as he gives him a sharp look and puts a comforting hand on Fen’s shoulder.

“I’m sorry,” Fen says after a moment, smiling bravely through her tears. “We’re going to see Fray, who’s wonderful, but she’s not actually — our baby we never knew, before she died.”

“Fairy fuckery,” Eliot explains in an undertone. “They told us Fray was ours, but actually, she was just a random—the baby was stillborn.”

Quentin is horrified. “Fen, I’m so sorry. And El, I’m sorry, I can’t believe I—you guys…” he trails off. He wasn’t there for them. He never really thought about Fray at all, except as a curiosity, but how jarring it must have been, for Eliot, who hadn’t wanted to get married, and who probably hadn’t wanted a child, to lose a baby and then be told she was a full-grown adult. And then to have that rug ripped out from under your feet too: to know that the child of your own blood was just gone, like she had never existed in the first place.

“It’s fine, Q,” Eliot says, understanding, as always, what Quentin is trying to say, and letting him off the hook. He’s so… “A lot has happened over the last few years.”

“Right, but it’s not nothing. You lost your child. You didn’t even know, it’s like she was never born. I should’ve thought about what you were going through—but I mean, I’ve never—” He’s never been a father. He has always thought of it as something he’d like to be, one day, in a distant, pipedream future, in which he’s stable and normal and happy, but it hasn’t ever felt like an idea that has weight. Anyway, this isn’t about him. “I can’t even imagine what that feels like,” he says quietly.

The subject must be bothering him more than he lets on, because Eliot looks like he’s been slapped.

“No,” he says finally. “I guess you can’t.”

* * *

As it turns out, Alice isn’t able to meet Quentin for a couple of days. When they do meet up, she looks especially pretty and greets him with an apologetic smile, which makes him feel like the worst human being alive.

“Sorry it took me a while to get back,” she says. “You said you wanted to talk about something important?”

“Yeah. Alice. You know how we were talking, last time, about how I—” Just call a spade a spade, he thinks, and clears his throat so he doesn’t choke on the words. “Cheated on you?”

“Yeah. I remember,” she says, smile vanishing.

“The moment I woke up that morning, I wished I could take it all back. I was in love with you. It was a mistake, not something I consciously wanted to do. All I could think about was how to earn your forgiveness, and get you back. Because you were the one I loved, not anyone else.” He blurts it all out in one go, because it suddenly seems very important that she know this. Even if he’s about to undermine it all in a second, or especially because of that.

“I know that. I get it, Q, and I mean. You fucked up, but we’ve all fucked up. Why are you obsessing about this now?”

Quentin sighs. “Because I’m the fucking worst at being your boyfriend, and I’m about to fuck it up again.” She takes a half-step back, eyes wide, and he hurries to explain. “Not… I didn’t cheat on you. I wouldn’t. I couldn’t do that to you, not again. I’m sorry. I—” He stops talking, like a coward.

Alice saves him the trouble of searching for the words. “You’re breaking up with me,” she surmises, painfully quick as ever.

“Yes,” he says.

“Because. Oh. Because you don’t want to cheat on me.”

“I don’t—I don’t want to _hurt_ you, Alice.”

She ignores that, and carries the thread to its logical conclusion. “But you want someone else.”

“Yeah,” he manages, and looks down at his feet.

“Oh,” she says again, and the syllable is damning on Alice’s tongue, way too knowing. “Well. I guess it’s not Margo,” she adds, and he can’t quite parse her tone. Not angry, exactly, but closer to frustrated. A little wry.

“No,” Quentin admits, trying to meet her eyes, because she deserves this from him, at least. Honesty. “I swear, I didn’t—it isn’t like that, with us, it never has been, maybe it never will be, but it isn’t fair to you, not when I feel like this about—I didn’t know, or I wouldn’t have—I didn’t _realize_—”

Alice laughs, although she still looks like she wants to cry, too, buttoned up and miserable in the way she had been when he first met her. “You know. I think _I_ realized. But I convinced myself…” She sighs. “The way you were, when he was gone, when all you cared about was getting him back. You get really single-minded when you’re in love, Quentin. It’s pretty obvious, especially for someone who’s been on the other end of it before.”

Quentin knows this about himself. And hasn’t he pretty much connected the dots already, thinking about how he was while Eliot was possessed? But still, there’s something about _Alice Quinn_ naming the emotion that hits him like a slap in the face, punches the air out of his lungs. _He’s in love_.

“If you knew, why would you…” He doesn’t understand how cruel the question is until it’s half out of his mouth, and Alice is bristling in turn.

“I don’t know, Q, maybe because you were the only good thing in my life, and I’ve been trying so hard to—you know, _fuck you_. Are you really trying to blame me for you being so oblivious you couldn’t even figure out what you were feeling?”

“No,” he backpedals. “No, I’m—” He’s sorry. He’s honestly bewildered himself, how he could have missed the magnitude of this thing brewing inside him for months and years, apparently.

“Because you know, you asked _me_. You told me you wanted me in your life.”

“I did. I do. But Alice. It’s not about anyone else, not really. You and me—I think we’re trying this for the wrong reasons.” That stops her flat for a second, and he takes advantage of the pause to go on. “It’s what you said, about going back to how we were. When we were happy together. About breaking and becoming whole again.” He takes a breath and tries to put it into words. “Mending an object, bringing the pieces back together, it’s this amazing feeling. Like I can fix things, go back, undo them. It feels right, and simple, and good. But… people aren’t like that. We’re not… we can remember what we were before, but we can’t be exactly that again. Whatever we’ve gone through, the things we’ve done, the mistakes we’ve made—maybe we can get some aspect of our old selves back, but we’re not objects. We’re people; we’re living.”

They’re living. Quentin’s alive, when he should have been dead, and this second chance at life isn’t a chance to _go back to who he was before_, not exactly. It’s the chance to go on, to go forward. Maybe he can be whole again, but not in the same form. And maybe it’s trying to go backwards that’s made him feel stuck.

Alice looks stricken. Quentin says, gently, “I wanted it to work. Because I remember you made me so happy, and I was so sad and lost when we talked about it, I thought that if I could just find the person I’d been with you… “

“Me too,” she admits in a small voice.

“But Alice, look at everything you’re doing. You saved my life, and all our friends, and maybe that was just to make up for what you did, but what you’re doing now… you love it, don’t you? You’re using all your power and your brilliance and doing good, not just to make amends, but because that’s the person you want to be.”

Alice looks at him for a long, quiet moment. “And the person you want to be. It’s who you can be, with Eliot?” It’s not forgiveness. But it is, he thinks, with a pang of affection, Alice, trying as ever to understand.

“I don’t know,” Quentin says. “But I think I owe it to that person to try.”

* * *

As expected, Eliot doesn’t show up to the apartment the following week. But then, the week after that, Margo sends a message that Eliot and Fen have extended their trip, and she doesn’t know exactly when to expect them back.

Margo sounds irritated. Quentin tries not to feel too disappointed. He puts the mug with the missing piece, the one he gave to Eliot for safekeeping, in the cupboard, and tries to focus on other things instead. His feelings have apparently been brewing for years. They’ll keep a little while longer.

So he’s sitting at the dining table, staring at two identical plates in front of him, and definitely not wondering whether it would be too desperate to turn up in Fillory unannounced and wait for Eliot’s return in his bedroom (in his bed), when Julia comes in.

“So, is it okay for me to use my own room for the weekend? Or are you appropriating it for completely normal friendly sleepovers again?”

“That depends,” Quentin replies, ignoring her teasing and not looking up. “Are you going to throw a party and refuse to let me hide out in _my_ bedroom if you stay here?”

“Most definitely,” she lies, swooping in from behind to hug him and kiss his cheek with a theatrical smack. “What are we doing with the plates?”

“Asking the hard questions,” Quentin says. “If we break both of them along the exact same faultlines, will I be able to put each plate back together with its original pieces? Or are they interchangeable when it comes to mending?”

“Fascinating,” Julia says, and settles down beside him, putting her phone down on the table.

It’s purely coincidence that he looks at the lock screen as it flashes, and sees the date.

“Shit,” he says. “Fuck.” He’s been so occupied with his work, and not thinking about what day Eliot might be back, and how he’s going to tell him, that he’s forgotten…

“What?”

“It’s—I forgot. It’s my dad’s birthday, today.”

“Oh, Q.” When he doesn’t say anything else, she leans into his shoulder. “You’ve had a lot going on. I’m sure he would understand.”

“Of course he would _understand_,” Quentin spits out. “He was so understanding that he understood that his son would sacrifice his life for a magical quest, and then not even show up to say goodbye. We talked about it, before we went to Blackspire, remember?”

God, he’s been _happy_. He’s been enjoying magic again, when it cost his dad his life. He’s been falling in love.

“I remember,” Julia says quietly, “that you almost gave the quest up, because you weren’t sure you were doing the right thing. Because as much as you loved magic, and felt responsible for its loss, you were worried about hurting him. Nobody knew what would happen when we got magic back, Q. It’s awful that his cancer came back too, but you didn’t know that it would happen for sure. And if your memories hadn’t been taken away, and the Monster hadn’t kidnapped you, you would have been by his side. It’s not your fault.”

“I knew it was a possibility,” Quentin points out unnecessarily. “I knew it, and I did it anyway. It’s the last thing I said to him, you know? That I didn’t know if it would kill him, but I was going to do it anyway.” He laughs. “I felt like I was being an adult. Making a choice, taking the consequences.” He drops his head into his hands, elbows on his knees.

Julia touches the elbow closest to her, and holds on, but doesn’t say anything. Quentin speaks into his hands. “Jules, he was my _dad_.” It hits him hard, out of nowhere. Of all his friends, Julia is the only one who knew him too. His dad will never meet any of the others, never see him get married, assuming he ever gets his shit together enough for that, or God, have kids, if he’s ever stable enough to manage another human being besides himself. Quentin tries not to think about Eliot. “He just looked at me, all matter-of-fact, and asked if I was _asking for his permission _to turn magic back on and kill him, and I—”

Something very strange happens. As he’s reliving the memory, Quentin feels like he missed a step going downstairs, and it was a deep step, or a small cliff of some kind. There’s an awful, jarring feeling of freefall, abrupt _emptiness_ where his mind expects something solid, and it makes him panic. “Uh,” he gasps, breathing fast. “Um.”

“Q? Quentin, just take a breath with me, take it easy,” Julia says, and breathes with him until he manages to find the ground under his feet, so to speak. “What happened?”

Quentin lifts his head up from his hands and shakes it, but it doesn’t fully clear. “I—that was weird,” he says, and tries to pick at the sensation slowly. Systematically. “I told him that I wasn’t asking for his permission. That I just wanted to apologize to his face, and tell him what I was going to do. But I think I… I also told him I got married? And had a kid?”

“_What_?”

“Yeah. What the fuck?” He tries to remember, but the fragment of memory feels unstable and hollow. It’s like trying to recall a song lyric in a completely random language he doesn’t understand—it doesn’t link up to anything else in his brain, so there’s no familiar threads to latch on to, no context, just free floating garbled gibberish, difficult to reproduce in any meaningful way.

“Um, you don’t have any kids, right? As far as you know. The dragon egg didn’t count.”

“That was later, anyway,” Quentin says distractedly. “No. I—did I lie? Why would I…?”

“Just checking. What did you say, exactly?” Julia asks.

Quentin squeezes his eyes shut and imagines his dead dad, the way he saw him alive for the last time. He had said, “I don’t know what’s going to happen. But I’m going to do this,” and his dad _hadn’t_ said, “It’s all right,” or “I understand.” He had just smiled and said…

_What was his name? Your son?_

“I named him after you,” Quentin whispers.

“What?” Julia repeats. She sounds very concerned.

He opens his eyes. “I wouldn’t have lied, not to his face, not about that. I—Julia, I think there’s something wrong with me.”

He’s been feeling it all along, hasn’t he? _Something’s missing_.

Julia is Julia. She believes him without question. So they go to Brakebills, of course.

Even though memory manipulation falls under the Psychic discipline, Julia drags him straight to Fogg’s office, and the man examines Quentin himself. “I don’t see any residue of a memory erasing potion, or magic of any kind, Quentin,” he says. “Psychic magic includes other methods of blurring or corrupting memories, which leave less of a trace, but there’s always a magical echo. A brokenness in the psyche where the fragment was removed, which the Magician often blankets with a false memory, to hide it. The more significant the memory, whether positive or traumatic, the harder it is to do subtly.”

“Yeah,” Julia interjects grimly. “We know,” and oh fuck, they’ve come so far from it that Quentin had forgotten, but even before Fogg messed with all their minds, Julia’s had memory magic performed on her before. Not once, but twice: first, when she didn’t make it into Brakebills and managed to break through the mind wipe, and then, a _crude patch_…

“Jules,” Quentin says. “Are you—”

“We don’t know what happened to you, Q. We don’t _know_ how we got you back. What if this disturbance in your memory has something to do with that, or what you went through…”

No wonder she’s so worried about this.

“So you’re saying, we stop messing with it?” Quentin asks, stomach sinking. He thinks about Julia, tears leaking down her face, telling him about how she begged Marina to cast the memory spell on her after what Reynard did. He remembers Jane Chatwin telling him that the patch over Julia’s memory was there for a reason, and _if you still care about her, protect her_. And then being helpless to watch as Ember tore it away, and knocked her to the ground with the trauma of her own forgotten experience.

Maybe it makes sense to leave it alone, he thinks. After all, he had died in the Mirror Realm. No one knows what happened to his spirit after death. It’s possible that he went through some impossibly horrifying, inhuman torture that his living mind won’t be able to handle, and it’s rattled his memories in some way.

But it’s human nature. Now that he knows it exists, he _wants to remember_. And this anomalous fragment he’s stumbled upon — it’s been jarring to try to _access_ the memory, but the memory itself…

If he closes his eyes and tries, he can hear the _wonder_ in his own voice, even if he can’t find all the words he said. He feels the softness. The magic of it. He doesn’t know where it comes from, or where it leads, but it’s _important_.

Quentin’s afraid, too, though. All this time, everyone’s been telling him to let it go. He’s been telling himself that, trying to focus on the things and the people that make him happy, in this second chance at life. But if he was right all along, and there’s something truly wrong with him, does he even want to know?

“No,” Julia counters unexpectedly. “I’m actually saying we need to figure it out. We’ll be careful, in case it’s patching something… something that would hurt you, to remember. But.” She squares her shoulders. “You should know.”

“Julia,” Quentin says, as gently as he can. “You _asked_ for your memories—”

“I know what I did,” she replies. “I don’t blame myself; it’s what I needed, to survive that moment. But if I had never remembered, it wouldn’t have changed the things that happened next. Reynard would still have come after me. I wouldn’t have known I was _pregnant_, and I would’ve been completely vulnerable. Staying in the dark is not the answer, even if the knowledge hurts. We’re human. We can’t always control what’s done to us, but we can get better. We can make a choice to go forward.”

I’m not as strong as you are, Quentin wants to say, because he’s humbled by her: how she was “gifted” godhood through a sickening act of violation and brutality, but managed to embrace her spark on her own terms, to help humanity. How now that she’s human, again, not necessarily by choice, she’s still here, still taking ownership of the person she is and charging ahead.

“We should get Alice,” Julia continues. “I found the spell for the body, but she definitely refined it, and double checked all the research Eliot and I did on getting your spirit back. She might have found something about the effect of that kind of magic on memory.”

Well, this is awkward. “Um, maybe we should leave Alice out of it. Just for a while.”

“What? Q, I know she’s been busy with the Library stuff lately, but it’s not like she wouldn’t come back for—” Quentin looks away. Julia is his oldest friend, and catches the look anyway. “Oh. What the fuck?”

“So, yeah. We’re not, like, together, anymore. But it’s fine, and that’s really not the—”

“It’s fine?” she interrupts. “You and Alice, love of your life Alice, aren’t together anymore, and it’s fine,” she repeats.

“Yeah. But anyway—”

“When did this happen?”

“You know, a couple of weeks ago,” Quentin mutters, waving his hand uncomfortably. There are disadvantages to having someone around who’s known you since you were in grade school.

“You really are fine,” Julia says, with a weird expression. “I mean, you’re upset about your dad, and this whole psychic thing, but…”

“If I can interrupt,” Fogg sighs forlornly, but Julia ignores him.

“Alice didn’t break up with you, did she?” she guesses shrewdly. “_You_ did it. Because of—”

“Seriously, can we not…” Quentin starts, which is of course not a denial.

“I knew it!” she exclaims. Despite the seriousness of the situation, she sounds triumphant in her rightness. Asshole. “Oh my _God_, the way you were with him…”

“Really not the time, Jules,” Quentin grits out, but he can feel himself flushing. It’s all too much, reliving his last memory of his dad _ad nauseum_, the lingering worry that he’s somehow come back to life wrong, and the way he’s hurt Alice, again, but even still, the thought of Eliot is still making his heart skip a beat and stomach flutter, and that’s like, embarrassing and weird, right? This isn’t the time, he tells _himself_ sternly.

Fogg pinches his nose in despair. “As riveting as your relationship drama with Ms. Quinn and, I’m assuming, Mr. Waugh, is,” he says, which is just not okay, why does he know that, “I’ve been privy to it on several prior occasions and don’t really care to relive it now.”

“Wait, what?”

“I—oh, we—in the other timelines?” Quentin stutters, interested despite himself. Was it always just him fucking up and cheating on Alice with the ill-advised threesome, or was there a timeline where he and Eliot actually…

“Timeline,” he says again, and it’s not enough, it’s not the whole memory, but it’s enough of a memory _cue_ to knit some fragments together, suddenly. Eliot, timeline, this inexplicable story he told his dad… “The _quest_. That’s it, that’s it!”

“What quest?”

“Our quest, the quest to get magic back. Eliot and I got the Time Key, remember? We went back in time, and solved the Mosaic, but then there was no way of getting back to our time. So apparently, we lived out our lives there, and I wrote Margo a letter, told her how to get the Time Key in _our_ timeline, and she got it and stopped Eliot and I from ever going back in the first place,” Quentin explains in a rush. “I saw the letter, but I don’t—so there was this whole aborted timeline where we got old and died, but we don’t remember any of it, because it didn’t really happen.”_  
_

Julia absorbs his explanation, looking understandably confused. “So you told your dad about it,” she surmises finally. “To, what, explain what you were doing? The key quest?”

“I guess so?” Quentin strains to recall, and the swooping, uneasy feeling that comes with the disconnected memory is a little easier to deal with now that he expects it, or now that the memory has _some_ context, at least.

_On this quest, I’ve lived a whole life_.

“That makes sense, I guess,” he says, even though it doesn’t, not entirely.

_I grew old, and I got married, and I had a son. Who grew old. _He doesn’t really understand what he was thinking or trying to share with his dad at the time. Like, even if you don’t live to see me grow up, I did?

_And what was all that for, if it’s not for this?_ So what, he could hold up a whole life he doesn’t remember and say that it was more important than this one, with his dad? Like that life was enough to make the quest for magic worth completing?

“Another mystery solved,” Fogg says, reminding them that he’s still in the room. He’s probably going to usher them out of his office like errant children in a second.

“No,” Julia cuts in sharply, her teasing tone from earlier completely gone. “It doesn’t explain why you were so panicked about it, Q. I’ve got a bad feeling about this. Anything that can fuck with your memories like that is serious.”

“No,” Quentin agrees, because he’s almost always got a bad feeling, but this time, he has something more solid than that too. “The thing is, I saw the letter that I wrote Margo. Which is trippy, because if it never happened, how could the letter exist? But anyway, I told her about the time travel, and getting old, but… I’m not like, a hundred percent certain, but I don’t think it said anything about me having a son.”

Julia looks at him. “I guess it’s time to go back to Fillory.”

* * *

Quentin can feel Julia’s stare boring into the side of his head the whole way to the apartment, but she takes his hand and doesn’t ask questions when they step through the portal together.

They find Margo in the throne room, scanning over some treaty documents, in a fairly bad mood.

“Oh, wow,” she says, looking up. “I didn’t think I merited a visit if El’s not around.”

Quentin carefully doesn’t meet Julia’s knowing gaze. All right, maybe he’s been super obsessive and focused on Eliot in a horribly obvious way, to everyone but himself. Fuck, does that mean _Eliot_ knows?

He’s going to know soon anyway, Quentin reminds himself, and shoves his nerves back down into his chest. This is not the point right now.

“Hey, Margo. You okay?” he asks.

“You know, just back to doing the middle management, even though I’m High King now, and El’s supposed to be—but no, he just vanishes on a _family vacation_ with the ex-wife.” She sounds upset, actually, underneath the more obvious irritation and anger, but Quentin doesn’t really know how to comfort her without bringing up emotions that he suspects she’ll deny having, and which Eliot probably shouldn’t have shared with him.

So he sticks to the problem at hand. “Um. You remember how we got the Time Key?” he asks.

“You mean, do I remember finding out that my best friends were dead, and having to dig up a dead body? Yeah. Sort of memorable.”

“Do you still, uh, have the letter I wrote you? We wanted to see it. It’s sort of important.”

“Sure, sleep with it under my pillow every night,” she says, glaring at him incredulously. “What the fuck, Q? I know you’ve been M.I.A. for a while, but there have been a few regime changes and shit here? I kept it then, but I don’t know where the fuck it is now.”

“But from what you remember,” Julia intercedes, calming. “Eliot and Q went back in time and got the key. You got a letter telling you that…”

“That they were dead, and I had to go talk to Jane Chatwin about getting the Time Key. And then I stopped you guys from going through the clock in the first place.”

“Nothing about children, or a family?” Julia checks, and Margo shakes her head, looking more concerned now.

“So we never remembered,” Quentin says. It doesn’t make sense. He and Julia have been worrying that he’s forgotten something, but if he never remembered, then what was there to forget? And if the fragment about telling his dad is meant to be a false memory patch over something else, why use this odd isolated recollection from so long ago? He wouldn’t even have thought about it under normal circumstances, without the coincidences of today.

Julia seems to be thinking along the same lines. “Maybe it’s not that you forgot something you knew. Maybe coming back from the dead allowed you to access these memories that you didn’t have before? From the life that never happened?”

“No, because I _don’t_ remember that life now. I just remember _remembering_ it, somehow, and telling my dad. It doesn’t make sense at all. Unless it’s like… I _used_ to remember that life, and told my dad about it, but then the memories of it got taken away somehow when my spirit came back here?”

“But if that were the case, wouldn’t somebody else remember it too? I mean, if you went through this whole other life where you solved the Mosaic and you _remembered_ it, why wouldn’t you talk about it with one of us?”

“Wait, what?” Margo asks, and they tell her what’s been going on. “No, you guys never remembered. El never said anything about it, either, and why wouldn’t he have told me about _solving the Mosaic_?”

That’s an indisputable point. There’s very little that Eliot wouldn’t tell Margo, and, as Quentin is generally the person he tells instead if it ever occurs, he knows that it tends to be touchy-feely self-doubting stuff that he doesn’t want to burden her with, when she needs him to be strong by her side. Bragging about solving an unsolvable puzzle hardly falls into the category, and neither does the fact that Quentin apparently got married and had a child, unless it somehow...

Maybe it’s not about the Mosaic, after all.

So all this frantic panic, Quentin thinks as he and Julia walk back to the rooms kept for them in the castle, and it’s gotten them nowhere. Except Fillory, where he’s been trying to find an excuse to turn up for days, because he’s in love with his best friend, and he thinks that maybe there’s a chance that…

The worry of the day hasn’t subsided completely, but now that he’s here, and Eliot will be back sooner or later, the emotion swells up inside him again, and he can’t help but think about _that_, too.

Again, Julia’s on the same page. “Are you going to tell him?” she asks, as they reach her room.

“About the memory?” Quentin says. “Yeah, of course. I mean, it’s a moot point, if Margo doesn’t remember it, I don’t think Eliot ever did either, but I’ll ask him.”

“No, Q,” she cuts in. “Not about that.”

“Oh. That. Yeah. I mean, yes. I’m going to.”

Quentin’s afraid. He doesn’t know where this will lead. And his friendship with Eliot is so important to him, so vital, that he doesn’t know how he’ll survive it if he tries for more and loses what he has. But God, he has to try, doesn’t he? He has to trust that Eliot loves him, even if it’s not like that. They won’t lose everything, even in the worst case scenario.

And he does trust Eliot. Eliot’s the only one he’s ever trusted, with everything, with all of himself.

He doesn’t hear what Julia says, doesn’t register her smile. He’s walking back to his room in a daze, heart thrumming, when he literally runs into Eliot.

He’s walking with Fen, still in his traveling clothes, and startles spectacularly when he sees Quentin in front of him.

“Sorry, Fen, I need to borrow Eliot right now,” Quentin says, grabbing Eliot by the hand and dragging him away to the nearest empty room in the castle before he can even say a word.

“Q, what’s up?” Eliot asks, breathless, but all of a sudden, seeing him after what feels like so long (it’s only been a few weeks, but it’s the longest they’ve been apart since they both came back to themselves, and oh, how had Quentin missed the fact that he was _in love_?), Quentin has no words.

“I missed you,” he says finally, and for some reason, Eliot’s face falls before he straightens it out again.

“It’s good you’re here. I have to tell you something, actually.”

“Me too,” Quentin says. “I mean, I want to ask you something. But then I want to tell you something, too. You want to go first?”

“Not really,” Eliot replies. “But I should. I’ve been putting it off for too long, because I didn’t know how to tell you. And because I’m a selfish, cowardly person.” He waves off Quentin’s protest before he makes it, and squares his shoulders. “Listen. You know how no one knows how your spirit made it back to life? And you’ve been worrying that you’re missing something, that you came back wrong, somehow?”

Quentin is taken aback by the coincidence. “Yeah, actually. I was going to ask you—something happened today, and I thought I had it figured out, but then… like, remember the Time Key? I thought maybe we remembered more about that life than I thought, and I lost it when—but I talked to Margo, and she didn’t remember it either, so I think I was wrong.”

“Yeah,” Eliot says. “About that.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Spoilery warnings: Quentin worries that he’s “missing something” post-resurrection, and, in fact, he is missing all his memories of the Mosaic. It’s implied that this was somehow the price to bring Quentin back, and that Eliot was complicit in it. Since Quentin can’t remember anything, whether he consented to the memory loss is left open for now (but will be resolved by the end of the story). I think consent is kind of a tricky concept when it comes to resurrection, since the person is theoretically dead and can’t consent to anything, but sometimes memory manipulation troubles me in stories, so I wanted to warn for it in case.
> 
> The first chapter is unofficially subtitled “Q, wtf is wrong with you?” (The next one, if you want to know, is: “El, wtf did you do?”)
> 
> I've never done a WIP before, and seriously, this whole story was supposed to be no more than 20K words, so I don't even know what to say. I know a lot of people have already written a lot of (truly excellent) fix-it and healing/recovery stories, and this was meant to be more of a take on how Q and El might have found their way together without the Mosaic memories than anything else, but writing Q's part here turned into a bit of a journey back to life and self, too. I'm a little uncertain about how it turned out, but figured I should put it out in the world before I lose the nerve.
> 
> Thanks for reading, and as always, comments and kudos are deeply appreciated!


	2. this busy monster, manunkind

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Warnings: Eliot wanders in and out of various stages of grief (in no particular order), as well as some generally unhealthy and emotionally repressed headspaces. I don’t think there’s anything specific I can warn for, except that it got darker than expected, and the way that his emotions skew his memories and perceptions was hard to write, and might be hard to read.
> 
> Some liberties taken with Fillory lore (I haven’t read the books), fairytale logic, and Greek mythology. More on this in the endnotes.

_…how much do you have to lose before you’re no longer yourself?_

Eliot’s not High King any longer. He’s not sure he’s fit to be any sort of king, no matter how Margo bullies and Fen cajoles him into attending council meetings, pointedly asking for his opinion like he’s qualified to give any sort of advice. It’s not about the demotion. Maybe being deposed by a write-in candidate in an election for High Kingship had stung his pride, once upon a time, but given that the candidate in question was his best friend, who had then given up that hard-won crown to his wife in order to free him from a monster, it’s not like he can get that worked up over it now, if he even had it in him to get worked up at all.

But he can never look at a crown, one of _those_ crowns, without thinking about that day: the unbelievable loveliness of the Bridge of Flowers, and how even that wonder was eclipsed by the clear hope and belief in Quentin’s bright eyes as he asked Eliot to kneel, and dubbed him High King Eliot, the Spectacular.

Anyway, all this to say, he’s not dressed for a quest. In another life, he might have said the cane and the all black outfit lent him a distinguished air, but in this one, hobbled and mourning, all it means is that he doesn’t cut much of a dashing young figure anymore. No dashing for him, no wielding a bow and arrow or a sword. He’s really not seeking a questing creature here, just a moment of quiet. Alone.

So when he sees the whisper of white between the trees, glimmering in the moonlight, he waves a limpid little wave with his free hand and turns to limp the way he came.

“It is rare, Eliot Waugh, that one catches a glimpse of but makes no attempt to capture me.” She’s stepped out from behind the trees, and even if he hadn’t seen the illustration while searching for a solution to his fairy woes what feels like eons ago, it’s clear that he’s stumbled upon the White Lady, the Winter’s Doe.

He tries to dredge up a smile, or nod, or any expression to paste on over the gaping emptiness that’s hollowed his heart. “I mean no offense, my lady. But there’s nothing you could offer me, anyway, so I figured I wouldn’t waste your valuable time.”

He means to walk away again, but she truly is an arresting sight. He stands there like she’s caught him, instead of the other way around, with her serious, enigmatic gaze.

“You’re polite,” she says finally. “Not like your friends were, when they stole upon me as I slept and hit me with an arrow.”

“Well, truth be told, I might have done the same, under different circumstances. I tried to find you once. I came across your brother instead. A quest, instead of a wish.”

“Do you wish that you had never undertaken the quest?” She’s emotionless, only mildly curious. Eliot, on the other hand, feels like he’s floating out of himself, smoke from the pyre where he can see himself burning alive. One part of him is idly thinking about Anya on _Buffy_, and how she used to trick people into saying “I wish…” Another is speculating on what might have happened, if they had never set out on the quest for magic. He might never have seen Quentin again, locked in Fillory with the fairies shadow-powering his and Margo’s thrones. But there would have been no Blackspire, no monster, no need for fucking Quentin to fucking…

Well, maybe someone else would have undertaken the quest, anyway. Plenty of people had been motivated to get magic back, after all, and Eliot’s not arrogant enough to think that their little group of misfits was the best qualified for the task. The Library, the McAllisters, the hedges — there might have been a task force, for all he knew.

But maybe it would still have been Quentin, Quentin who had never met a quest he didn’t have a hard-on for in his whole life. Probably accompanied by Julia, or Alice, who both thirsted for knowledge and power like Eliot had for the oblivion of a good cocktail and a good fuck, back at Brakebills.

Maybe, maybe, maybe. The biggest part of his mind is trying to quiet all of this useless mental activity by saying: it’s not like it matters.

“I don’t know,” he says. “I don’t really think I wish anything, anymore. So if it’s all right with you, I should—”

“Quentin Coldwater,” she says, and Eliot goes cold now. There wasn’t a body to burn, that night, but nevertheless: he’s the cooling ashes; he’s the dust. “Penny Adiyodi. They petitioned together. They’re both in the Underworld, now.”

What the actual fuck is he supposed to say to that?

Nothing, he decides.

The White Lady’s expression, blank as it is in the moonlight, softens somehow. “You have not captured me, Eliot Waugh, and I do not hold you against your will. But if you can bear to tell it, I would hear how he died. And I would tell you a tale of him, in turn.”

“Who?” Eliot rasps out unnecessarily. “Which one?”

“The one whose name suffocates your heart with sorrow. The one in whom you are drowning, the river of woe from whom you expect never to emerge.”

Poetic, he wants to say sarcastically, but feels something rising up in his chest, aching behind his eyes. It’s different, somehow, from Margo alternatively bulldozing through and tiptoeing around any mention of Quentin and what he might have meant to Eliot. She’s the only one of their friends who definitely knows enough to know that Eliot might have had feelings that went beyond the friendly. It’s just because she knows _him_, though, not because she’s privy to all the details or the extent of it. That had always stayed strictly between him and Q.

As for everyone else, all they see is that Alice is the obvious candidate for bereaved widow, here. She’s Quentin’s great love, she’s the one who was with him when he died, the one who was brave enough to ask him for another chance. Eliot can’t begrudge her that, can he? If she gave Quentin one more moment of happiness, of the love he deserved, when Eliot hadn’t or couldn’t, he can only be grateful for that, now. He remembers her taking his hand in hers, that awful night. Maybe she, too, had suspected something of his emotions. But it all went unspoken. Not like this creature before him, acknowledging out loud that Eliot is grieving the love of his life.

“He died saving the world,” Eliot says, like he’s writing a history book, and can see the event from a distance. Then he steps closer to the facts. “He saved me, first.” Then, focuses on the details, neatly pared down. “He cast in the Mirror Realm. There was an explosion. That’s what killed him.”

“Do you know what he asked me for, when he found me in the forest?”

“You sent him back to Earth, didn’t you?”

She nods. “But that’s not what he asked for, first. You know.”

Quentin hadn’t told Eliot that, actually. But what else could it have been, back then? “Alice,” Eliot says, before the name can stick in his dry throat, uncharitable. “He wanted you to bring her back.”

“I told him I was unable,” she says in her cool, measured voice, and yeah. Wishes can’t bring back the dead. Even Eliot knows that bit of fairytale lore.

Eliot can imagine Quentin’s face. Doesn’t have to imagine. He remembers what Quentin was like, when Alice died. He remembers him in Brakebills South, when she was back, but not the girl he knew. He remembers burying Arielle, and the way Quentin had fallen apart in his arms.

Typical, Eliot thinks, that he has the experience, in two lives, of holding Quentin Coldwater tight as he mourned the love of _his_ life. Knows the way his body shakes and the tears fall down his face, the way his dark eyes are so, so full, and so terribly sad, that Eliot would split the world down the middle, rip out the remains of his own heart and offer it up, has done, if it would bring some small measure of happiness back to that beloved face. It’s heart-rending, it’s world-ending, the way Quentin loved and lost.

He wants to ask why she’s telling him this. If it’s because she thinks he was going to ask her for Quentin’s life back, and doesn’t want him to hold on to false hope. He wants to leave. He wants to listen, hungry for any memory of Quentin he doesn’t already have, even as it hurts him incalculably. But before he can make up his mind, she continues her story. “I granted Penny his wish. And then asked what else Quentin wanted, that I could grant. He asked if I could make him happy.”

God, _Q_. How can Eliot even think about being jealous, or mad, or any of it, when Quentin had been through so much, and despite everything, he was still so… he kept trying. For his friends, for magic, for the world. He’d died trying. Always mending, always searching for something good.

Eliot hadn’t even realized he had any sort of belief in the prevailing goodness of the universe left in his heart until he lost Quentin. Now it’s definitely gone. Because seriously. What kind of fucking powers-that-be see _Quentin_ and decide, _yeah, _this_ one, this is the one we kill_?

“What did you say?” Eliot asks now, vis-à-vis wishing for happiness, but he knows the answer to this one, too.

“That I could give him nothing to soothe his shade. The closest thing I could do would be to take away what caused him pain. Strip him of his memories of her.” She watches him closely.

Oh. Is that the point of this? Eliot can’t do that, can he? For an instant, he considers the idea, the thought of freedom from this weight he’s living under. But he can’t do that to Quentin. Not when he’s the only one who truly knows what they have been to each other, or at least, what Quentin had been to _him_, even if they weren’t that way at the end, even if it was only a passing thing, another life that never happened. Even without that life, how could he forget Quentin? How would he even begin to scrub his existence of all the marks that Quentin has left behind? No, he’ll live with the pain, the gaping holes, and the what-could-have-beens. Eliot’s better for having known Quentin Coldwater, he reminds himself, like a mantra, even if he feels so much worse right now.

“He said no,” Eliot says, because he knows Quentin. Quentin wouldn’t even have entertained the thought.

She smiles, very slightly. “So then he asked me to send him to his home. Your Earth. And wishes, like my brother and his quests, aren’t bound by realms, so that was within my purview. Two wishes granted.”

Two wishes. The part of Eliot’s mind that still stutters in Quentin’s most pedantic yet excited tones is almost certain the book had said the petitioner got three. But that’s Fillory for you: never quite what you think it’s going to be, and always disappointing.

They’re both silent for a minute. “Thank you,” Eliot says at last, “for sharing your memory of him.” He means it. Every word has stabbed. But it’s like unwrapping a wound, letting it breathe, to have his pain _acknowledged_ in a way he can’t bring himself to ask for from his friends, even Margo.

“I cannot grieve him as you do, child of Earth. I am a questing creature of Fillory, and I am as I have been created. But he was pure of spirit, and kind of heart. He was wiser than he appeared. I am sorry I could not give him what he truly wanted.”

Eliot’s crying, actually. He hasn’t noticed until now. But when he says, “I’m sorry I couldn’t either. I’m sorry I wasn’t,” the dark forest and the pale creature in front of him are all blurring together until he brings his hands up to his face and his voice is shaking through his gasping sobs.

The White Lady ignores his tears, but he’s more inclined to think of it as delicacy than callousness, given the tenor of this conversation. When he gets himself under control, she speaks again. “I regret, also, that I withheld the third wish, out of spite. But I mean to grant it to you, in his stead.”

* * *

“We need to stock up on eye cream, the next time we’re Earth-side,” Margo announces to the table when she spies Eliot making his belated entrance to breakfast the next morning. Fen’s off liaising with the FU Fighters, smoothing things over so that Margo can keep sharing the throne, and Josh is off somewhere in the castle, probably; Eliot’s not exactly keeping track. But there are two extra places set for breakfast, and two seats unexpectedly filled: Alice and Julia. “Your circles are showing, El,” Margo adds pointedly as he sits down beside her.

She’s concerned. That’s nice. “You keep me humble, Bambi.”

“Fuck, I hope not. I need you looking your proudest and prettiest when you hear petitioners with me this afternoon.” She’s trying to keep him busy, too, and none too subtly, either. He rolls his eyes, because he knows that’s what she expects him to do. Satisfied with that, she glares at him until he takes a bite of the food in front of him.

“Have you not been sleeping well?” Alice asks bluntly, and Eliot wants to laugh. He’d forgotten how awkward she could be. God, she and Quentin really had made the cutest couple, or the most fucking annoying, perhaps. To her credit, Alice meets his eyes like an apology and says, “I mean, I haven’t either.”

Eliot summons a smile for her from somewhere. “There’s always a bed here for Queen Alice the Wise, if your Library responsibilities are weighing on you and you need a break, my dear.”

“Oh. That’s not why I’m here.”

“Why are you two here, then?” Margo asks. “Not that it’s not _great_ to see you and all. But. Experience has taught me that this sort of unexpected visit is usually the precursor to some serious shit.”

“We’re fresh off our research montage and ready to bring Q back to life,” Julia says. “You in?”

“What,” Margo says, just as Eliot asks, “How?”

“Well, maybe not quite ‘ready.’ It’s a work in progress,” Julia admits.

“He died in the Mirror Realm,” Alice adds, like anyone here doesn’t know that. “I’ve been using my free time in the archives to research, but there aren’t really any accounts on how to bring someone back from that.”

“Of course there aren’t. God fucking forbid the Library actually provide us with any useful knowledge,” Margo says. She and Eliot share a look of understanding: this dynamic duo has got nothing. Brilliant and powerful Magicians Alice and Julia may be, but at best they’ve got a theory, and at worst a dream. It’s not a _plan_.

It’s a good thing Eliot hadn’t found the energy to hope. He eats more of whatever this weird grain pancake thing is, mechanically. The Fillorian equivalent of bulgur, he thinks.

“There weren’t really any good accounts of how to bring a shade back from the Underworld either, you guys. And yet, Alice and I both got ours back. Because of Q. He’d do it for any of us, you _know_ he would.” Julia stares them both down, apparently frustrated by their lack of excitement over the scraps of nothing she and Alice are serving up. But Margo blinks and glances at the table, and for her, that’s as good as a concession to the emotional blackmail.

Eliot, on the other hand, knows this road too well to do anything more than stare at its takeoff and then walk on by. It’s a road to nowhere. Maybe you walk every step steeped in guilt and self-hatred, but you keep walking.

He says, “You had a body, Julia. And Our Lady Underground restored your shade, right? She’s dead, last I checked. And Alice, you were a Niffin, which I assume is a physical being of some sort, since it’s literally when a body blows out its fuse on magic. Again, a body. Add shade, do the magic, _voilà_! But Q’s body… you told us it exploded, or imploded, or whatever, in the Mirror Realm.”

“You’ve correctly identified the first hurdle,” Julia says evenly.

“We can build him a new body,” Alice explains. “There’s a ritual. Julia found references to it when she was working on the Monster’s… it’s, um, quite complex, but we think we can do it, with a few more casters. And his blood. There was a witch, here in Fillory, when we set out to kill the Beast the first time, who took a vial. If we can get it from her…”

“So best case scenario, you build-a-body and then what? How do we get our very own stuffed animal to wake up and call itself _Quentin_?” Margo asks.

“We’ll need to find a way to call his spirit into the new body. He’s not a Traveler, which makes it more challenging.” Alice should be re-titled Queen of the Understatement, Eliot thinks. Challenging? More like impossible.

Margo looks like she’s about to voice his thoughts, but before she can, Julia stands up. She looks at Eliot now, specifically. “We need help. And by the looks of it, so do you.”

Well, for all that she’s irritating, with her take-charge faux-cheerful call to action, she’s not wrong. If it weren’t for Margo and Fen haranguing him with tasks, not to mention the mandatory physical therapy and the strict routine of healing potions and no psychoactive substances Lipson has hammered into him, Eliot knows he wouldn’t be far from the figure Julia had been once, crying and chain smoking into a couch until he dies of dehydration.

“So if you’re going to poke holes in our theory, how about you do it productively, and offer some ideas to patch it up too?” She lifts her chin. She’s apparently recalling the same exchange as him, because she says, “I don’t take no for an answer, remember?”

“Kill some birds?” Eliot echoes, somehow finding a rueful smile for her too. He can’t hope, he thinks, but all right. He can do this. He can make a token effort, or fake one, so that everyone else can live with themselves, and move on with their lives. It’s no different than sitting in the council room and persuading farmers from different regions that maintaining a supply of non-magically grown foodstuff is important even though magic appears to be back on for good now. It makes Fen smile at him encouragingly and Josh pat his shoulder and say, “I won’t pretend to know Margo better than you, but I think it’s good for her to see you getting back to yourself.”

Fuckwit. As if Margo doesn’t see through his act in about half a second. She’s just gotten tired of calling him out on it explicitly all the time (even Bambi tires of being forceful once in a while), and has descended into needling little asides about his fading beauty and lack of characteristic sparkle.

And as if talking about _farming_ has ever been Eliot being himself.

As if Eliot isn’t… Eliot’s still himself. He’s still an empty, decorative, willfully shallow shell: look at him, and he’s _gorgeous; _tap on him, shake him, crack him open, and he’s hollow.

But Bambi’s right, of course. Even his beautiful veneer has been affected by recent events. The Monster, murderous spree quite aside, was a menace to proper skin and hair care.

When Eliot imagines the future now, he thinks: he’ll do the physical therapy, and lose the cane. He’ll get his hair trimmed, and exfoliate. He’ll be beautiful to behold, again. He’ll stand by Bambi’s side, be her arm candy in diplomacy. Maybe fuck his way into a few favorable treaties while he’s at it. He hears the dullness in his voice, and thinks about the inflections that make him sound witty, the type of remarks that are cutting enough to be flirty, but not sharp enough to cut through to the core, because why the fuck would he care to know what lies within whoever he’s with?

Romantic mournful thoughts of how loving Quentin _made him a better person_ are all very well in the moonlit forest of Fillory, swapping stories with a mystical creature like something out of a fairytale, but by day, this is the life that Eliot has to lead. This is the semblance of a person he is, and always has been, since the day he created himself out of the dirt and the muck.

There’s no one left in the world who’ll spend years culling goodness and meaning out of Eliot’s silly, superficial life, or more likely, _willing_ that goodness and meaning into existence by the sheer power of his transformative belief.

_For what it’s worth, I think you are going to be a really good king._

Ha. For a second, swept up in it, Eliot had almost believed… but look at him now.

(_I don’t have to tell you that I think you _would’ve_ been a good father, El. I know it. You already are.)_

Look at him fucking now.

“Kill some birds,” Julia says, with conviction, like she’s determined to pick up Quentin’s slack, “and save our boy.”

* * *

“Have you come to make your wish?”

That night, the Winter’s Doe finds Eliot earlier on his usual path through the forest, closer to Whitespire.

When they first came back to Fillory, Eliot had found himself attended everywhere he went, largely on Margo’s orders. It had been reasonable, then, given his physical limitations. But as those eased up, and with them, the need for constant assistance, he found himself with mysterious task lists and appointments at all hours of every day. Margo was nothing if not extraordinarily efficient, and greatly feared by most people in the castle, which made them fairly willing to do her bidding and ignore his requests for privacy.

The nighttime walks are a compromise. Margo is _not_ particularly good at that, so about one month back into Fillory, round whatever, Eliot finds enough energy to be underhanded. He seeks out Josh while Margo is otherwise occupied.

“Uh, is this the part where you threaten me with bodily harm if I mistreat Margo in any way? Because dude, I gotta say, it’s a good sign if you’re feeling well enough for that!”

Eliot rolls his eyes and holds up his cane. “Do I look like I’m up to doing bodily harm? Also, Margo flexes by crushing her own eyeball with her bare hands to show malevolent magical beings that she won’t be controlled or cowed. I think she can defend herself against _you_.”

“I know, I love that about her,” Josh says dreamily.

Ugh. Well, at least he’s appreciating Bambi for the right reasons.

“She’s worried about me,” Eliot says bluntly. “But _I’m _worried that she’s taking on too much, trying to micromanage my recovery _and_ the kingdom. You seem to be her stress reliever of choice, lately, so I have a proposition to make.”

He explains his idea. Eliot would like to go outside for his physical therapy exercises, instead of walking around the castle with a nervous retinue of servants trailing behind and watching him for the slightest misstep, for fear of Margo’s wrath. Josh could facilitate this by agreeing to accompany him, as a trusted monitor, the first few times. Once he’s convinced of Eliot’s ability to navigate the chosen path without assistance, he could then _stop_ accompanying Eliot, and get back to the business of being Bambi’s sexual support chew toy.

“Not to oversell my own importance,” Eliot says, “but I guarantee you that offering your time and support to my recovery will make Margo extremely grateful. And she’s not that good at expressing her gratitude in _words_, you understand. So, win-win.”

Josh gives him a sad sort of look. “You know, you don’t have to—I’d do it, just if you asked, you know. We’re friends, right?”

“This is me asking,” Eliot responds, unmoved.

Anyway, the whole idea of these walks has been to be alone. Eliot doesn’t, historically, cope well with being alone, and having time to think thoughts. Remember memories. That sort of thing. But it’s been tiring, lately, to play at being himself, to speak his lines out loud to anybody. And sleep feels like an impossibility, most nights.

He’s not expecting to run into the Winter’s Doe again, but he’s not _not_ expecting it, either. She had said she would give him time to consider his wish, and he had remained noncommittal about the entire affair, uninterested. But he finds himself oddly not irritated by her eerie, watchful presence, nonetheless.

“I haven’t, actually,” Eliot says now. An idea, neatly bow-tied, has occurred to him. “But hey, maybe you’d like to know. Alice Quinn is here in Fillory. The one Quentin asked you to save.”

She says nothing.

“You know,” he prompts. “If you want to find her and offer _her_ the extra wish.” It makes sense. Alice is what Quentin wanted most, once upon a time, and forever. She’s been burning the candle at both ends, trying to rebuild the Library into something positive, and to try to do for Quentin what he had once done for her. For all her mistakes, she’s wise, too: Eliot is sure that she’ll be able to come up with a wish that’s both useful and well-worded against any loopholes.

“I offered it to you,” she says, sounding displeased.

“It’s a generous offer,” Eliot says, appeasing in turn. “But just. I’m just saying, I understand. You were here, and I was here. But if you have this residual guilt, or feeling of unfinished business, or whatever. Wouldn’t there be a better… symmetry in offering the wish to Alice? She’s the wish you couldn’t grant Q. She could wish for something in his place.”

“You were here,” she repeats. “You think, what, that you were simply _convenient_?”

Well, yes. When has Eliot been anything more than…

_I mean, think about it. We work. We know it because we lived it_.

Yeah, Eliot thinks, abruptly furious, we worked. We worked because your girlfriend died, and hated you for bringing her back, so you distracted yourself with a quest instead, and I was _there_. We worked because your _wife_ died, and I held you, and I picked up _your_ son when he looked at me with _your_ big, stupid eyes, and I was _convenient_. We _lived it_, in a life that never happened, and which didn’t matter, and whose only purpose is to fucking _torment_ me now that you’re...

And then he feels acutely, viscerally sick, all of a sudden, thinking like this, about that life, now. Like he could double over with the nausea and the guilt and just retch until he tears open his guts again and turns his entire body inside out on to the forest floor. What the fuck is wrong with him, that an innocent comment can unchain Eliot’s petty cruelty, unleash all his ungrateful, spiteful bitterness?

He was happy, he knows he was, and he had _loved _Teddy, and the life that had sprouted up and grown around him, he _had_. What did it matter that Quentin hadn’t really had a choice, that he had seen that he and Eliot were in it together for the long haul, and… rounded up? They’d still built a family together, hadn’t they, whatever the foundation? It was still a thing that meant something, in the end.

And now, Quentin is gone, but Eliot should be grateful for the lifetime of happiness he did have, stolen and secondhand though it was.

Eliot should stay in Fillory and be satisfied with his honored place by Margo’s side, the first place he ever felt like he belonged, instead of resenting her for finding purpose in a kingdom and a crown that had, once upon a time, done the same for him.

Eliot should be thankful that Alice made Quentin happy, instead of hating her for being the one who Quentin _chose_, in this life, over and over and over again.

Eliot should be good; Eliot should be true; Eliot should be kind. Isn’t that the best way to honor Quentin Coldwater?

He’s not. On all scores, he’s not. He plays at it, by day, but unmasked in the darkness, he doesn’t know his own face. He only knows its monstrous ugliness. And it’s easier to cling to the empty, dazzling shell he was once, than to acknowledge the hideousness that truly lies within.

But Eliot says none of this. He says, as if he’s in any position to judge: “How do I know you wouldn’t have offered the wish to whichever of Quentin’s friends you saw first? You told me that you withheld a wish out of _spite_. Forgive me if I’m not convinced of your conscientious commitment to the job.”

Instead of bristling, however, the White Lady considers his words. “Perhaps it wasn’t spite,” she muses. “Perhaps it was just the freedom of knowing I could.”

Well. Isn’t that just how the world runs? It’s cruel, because it can be.

“Two brothers, gods, created Fillory, and the magical creatures in it,” she continues.

“Yeah, met them. Not impressed.” And really not that interested in the history lesson, Eliot thinks, regretting that he’d run into her tonight after all. But again, he finds himself caught by her peculiar, mysterious gaze, the way her tone is unbothered, but her words have weight.

“Two creators. I am as I have been created,” she repeats, “a creature of chaos, bound by rules. Dragged along by the deepest desires of anyone who captures me, however insipid, but in their absence, having no life or heart of my own, nothing beyond the open air of the empty forest.”

“Well. That sounds like a lot of internal conflict,” Eliot says, finding some vestiges of sympathy despite himself. What does it even mean, to be a creature whose only purpose is literally to fulfill the wishes of others, as if you have no free will or meaning beyond them? To feel, because clearly she does, but to know that those feelings are incompatible with your fundamental makeup?

“Umber’s rules, which are _unbreakable_, constrain Ember’s chaos. But then, on the other hand, everything in Fillory is riddled with loopholes, is it not?” She doesn’t wait for an answer. “Then, for many years, Umber was gone. We, created by them both, felt the shift in the balance toward chaos. More freedom, more flexibility. But less direction. Less understanding. Three wishes, the rules say, but they don’t say I have to grant them at the same time. If either of the petitioners had ever found me again, I would have…” She shrugs.

“Took a raincheck, thought you’d have time, did you?” Eliot asks, hatefully, sympathy evaporating. “Didn’t think he’d die first.”

“I’m here now,” the White Lady says. “And as you say, so are you.”

Yes, Eliot is here. But what does it matter? What does it matter that she’s trying to make amends for what she did? What does it matter that he loves Quentin, still, forever, till the end of his days, when Quentin is gone?

This is the life to which Eliot has returned. He can’t go back. He can’t move forward. There is only the dark, empty forest by night, interspersed with endless days of frenetic activity that leads him nowhere.

Maybe, he considers idly, he can put this creature out of her misery, at least. Make a wish, it’s a simple enough fix. But what would he even wish for? To steal magic from the world again, out of spite, and burn Fillory to the ground, out of hate? (But no, Quentin died for magic; Margo lives for Fillory. He can’t.) To end his own suffering, to vanish into the Underworld, himself? (But no, he thinks, recalling the glares, the yelling, the pleading, her hand crushing his hand when he woke up after the surgery and she had to tell him… no, Bambi loves him. She’d be all right, he knows, but he can’t do that to her.)

Maybe Eliot does know what it’s like, to exist only for the desires of others, or for one other, now. Selfish as he is, he doesn’t remember how to live for himself.

“Three wishes, two granted, one left. Got it. What are the other rules?” he asks, hearing the dullness of his own voice. Maybe he can wish for a cigarette, smoke it, set the forest on fire with its sparking remnants, and end this farce.

She ticks them off, businesslike, in contrast to the entire mood of this conversation. “I cannot cross the veils that obscure Elysium or Tartarus, or enter the House of the Shades.”

“Can’t bring back the dead, yeah. And then?”

She doesn’t acknowledge his comment. “I cannot create emotion or destroy it — not truly, not permanently. The shade yearns, too much, to return to its truest form; it _remembers_.”

“Arbitrary true love clause, fine.” Eliot really has wandered into a fucking fairytale, hasn’t he?

“And I can’t _suggest_ wishes to you. That’s the last of the unbreakable rules. I can curve your wish, let’s say: help to refine it, if I’m so inclined, or misinterpret it, if you’re being an asshole. But first, you have to express the wish of your own heart and mind.”

Eliot says nothing. There’s nothing to say.

“Think about what you want.”

“I’ll do that,” Eliot lies, and goes back to his bed, ornate and fancifully outfitted, cold and empty, and lies awake, and tries very hard not to think at all.

* * *

But then, the sun rises, and everyone’s got a part to play. This is like Quest for Magic, circa Unity Key, the reunion tour, Eliot reflects, and says as much. Just missing the lead singer, in a sense.

“He was a shit singer,” Julia says after a moment.

“He really was,” Eliot agrees, and they share a small, forced laugh.

Working with her honestly isn’t that bad, though. She’s smart and doesn’t take any shit, but she doesn’t know him well enough to push him too hard, if there’s anything he doesn’t want to talk about. He has no doubt that she would, if she thought it was necessary, but otherwise it turns out she’s got an ounce or two of tact.

So Eliot’s helping Julia on board the soul train, mostly because his ongoing recovery limits his travel and heavy-duty spell casting abilities. Everyone else is on body duty. Alice has gone to see the witch, because she’s the one who best remembers the path Quentin described taking to find the creepy cottage in the first place. Josh accompanies her, because Josh’s affability and weird charm seem like a good counterpoint to Alice’s incredible intensity. Hopefully, the witch will take kindly to at least one of them, even if it makes Eliot both curious and horrified to imagine what kind of small talk Alice and Josh will make on the carriage ride over there.

Margo, much to her chagrin, is being held in magical reserve. “Your Cryomancy is the only thing that will be able to keep Q’s new body in stasis while we search for a way to get his soul into it,” insists Alice. “The body has to be built as soon as possible, because we don’t just want any body, we want a replica of _his_ body. It’s already been a while since he died, and the spell we’re using will partially draw on our sense-memories of him, which can fade over time. But once the body is recreated, it could be hours, or days, before we can imbue it with his spirit. Even with proper medical equipment, it’ll be… perishable. You won’t be able to leave his side. We need you to be strong enough to hold the cryo-preservation.”

“Watch me,” Margo says, and swoops off to find some Fillorian injustice she can correct with no magic, just her glorious raging energy, in the meantime.

Penny-23’s been dispatched to the centaurs, to get some anatomical blueprints of Quentin, for lack of a better term, since they fixed up his body the first time it got blown to bits. He’s also responsible for uncomfortable communication with Kady, who’ll be running the Earth side of the casting with her hedge friends. Apparently, Quentin’s body is “of the Earth,” and that matters, for this sort of thing.

Eliot doesn’t pretend to understand it. And he’ll admit he’s impressed with how much Alice and Julia have managed to put together. But it still doesn’t solve the problem of how to bring _Quentin_ back, charming little Franken-body aside.

So he resigns himself to speed-reading of trashy spiritualist memoirs intermixed with world mythology texts. And story time with the ex-shadeless ex-goddess who’s been to the Underworld and back once before. He doesn’t actually believe it will work. But the others have to see it for themselves, apparently, so Eliot has to drag himself through the motions.

“So run it by me again,” Eliot says, pushing aside the latest book of Greek myths he’s been poring over. “The only way to hop into the Underworld as a living person is to pay off a dragon Gatekeeper with a super valuable magical object of some kind.”

“Right. She keeps your body safe for 24 hours and sends your soul to the Underworld.”

Something rankles, from the books he’s been reading. “Wait. You still had a ‘soul’ to send down there, even though you were missing your shade at the time? All these myths about the Underworld refer to dead souls _as_ shades, interchangeably.” 

“Martin told me that a shade is just the slimmest part of your soul. The part that lets you feel things. I had all my memories, and I could rationally think through stuff even when I didn’t have a shade. I just didn’t care about it.”

_…I could give him nothing to soothe his shade. The closest thing I could do would be to take away what caused him pain. Strip him of his memories of her._

“Huh. Memories aren’t part of your shade, then. But are they part of your soul?” Eliot wonders. “Your soul, everything that makes you _you_ — is it something you’re born with, or is it something you make, from the experiences you go through?”

“It’s an interesting philosophical question, but come on, Eliot. We need to focus.”

“Right. I’m just saying, this really doesn’t make sense,” Eliot says, shaking himself and getting back on topic. With his nighttime wanderings, he hasn’t been getting much sleep, that’s all. “You’ve met Persephone, and heard about Hades, so we’re assuming we’re working from Greek mythology here. She’s dead; he’s AWOL. Fine. But doesn’t it bother you that none of this is internally consistent in any way whatsoever? If a shade is _part_ of a soul, then what makes up the rest? When we say we’re getting Quentin’s soul back, what exactly are we trying to summon into his new body?”

If they don’t even understand this, how can they devise a spell to do it? Julia sighs her acknowledgement of the point. Eliot goes on, frustrated, “And also, like, no rivers? No ferryman? No Orpheus and Eurydice clause? Because those are the only classical Greek myths I’m seeing that deal with the Underworld, but apparently it’s nothing like that.”

Doing all this research, are they just barking up the wrong tree?

“Yeah, no rivers, we just went down in an elevator,” Julia confirms. Seriously. What the fuck. “But forget that for a second. We know how to get _down_ there, sort of, without coming up with a new spell. The question is, how do we get Q’s soul—whatever that may mean—out?”

“How’d you get Alice back, the first time? Like, details.”

“I carried her shade,” Julia answers.

“Okay, simple grab and run, promising.”

“No. Because I was _missing_ mine. So two souls rode the elevator down, and two souls rode it back up.“

“But they didn’t notice you stealing a shade, at least.”

“I wouldn’t say they didn’t _notice_. But nothing set off any alarms fast enough to stop us.”

“So assuming we can find Q, if, uh, _complete_ souls aren’t kept with the shades, can we just…”

Julia waves that concern off. “The souls are usually roaming around, waiting to move on. It’s like a way station, or limbo. We can probably get into the registration desk and figure out what his number is, where he’s headed, where he’s hanging out in the interim.”

Unspoken is: provided he hasn’t already moved on.

Oh, right, he thinks, cynicism rising up to its usual levels. Eliot doesn’t believe that this will work in the first place. Eliot isn’t hoping. He’s doing this for Margo, and Julia, and even Alice, so that they don’t feel guilty that they didn’t try.

He’s getting caught up in it, though: the puzzle, the effort, the whirlwind of hope. He’s asking deep philosophical questions about the nature of souls. Fuck, maybe Quentin really has left his mark.

Before Eliot can return to form, and mention the wonderful possibility that Quentin is truly just gone—beyond _the veil that obscures Elysium_, perhaps, out of reach—Julia continues, “But listen. I carried Alice’s shade, but I couldn’t take _my_ shade too, you see? When we were down there, she—my shade, I guess, _I_—told me that if I took Alice’s shade, my shade would have to stay. Something about that elevator or the dragon’s magic weighs the number of souls that can return to the living world. The only reason we could bring a shade at all is because mine wasn’t there to begin with. Like, payment for the trip is by weight, and I don’t know if we can pay to bring an extra passenger.”

“Oh. So if two souls go down there to get him—”

“There’s no guarantee we can get a third soul out. Or if we can, but there’s some sort of price.”

“Someone could stay in his place,” Eliot suggests, after a long pause. Simplest solution.

He can’t read her expression, but her voice is firm. “Eliot. No. Q would kill us if you did that. He wouldn’t get on the fucking elevator if he realized you were going to stay. We have to find another way.”

Right, Eliot forgot, it was fine for _Quentin_ to do it to them, but if anyone else tried to—Eliot bites back the anger, feeling sick to his stomach again. How can he be thinking like this, when _Quentin is dead_?

Anyway, complete-soul-Quentin wouldn’t have to know about the soul exchange until it was too late, but he takes her point. Idly, he looks down at the book he was reading, still open in front of him. Five rivers of the Greek Underworld. Something about what Julia was saying, about payment for the trip…

“Maybe we’re going about this wrong. You _paid_ the dragon, right? Look at this,” he says. “People used to put coins into the mouths of the dead, to pay off a ferryman to cross _into_ the Underworld. I’m not clear on why there are five rivers, or if they’re real rivers, but something’s crossing back and forth and able to carry souls, and payment is a recurring theme. There has to be a way to pay _someone_ off, to row the boat the other way with Quentin on it. Maybe they’ve upgraded to an elevator and a dragon now, but whatever. ‘Row the boat’ so to speak.”

All magic has a price. Maybe if they figure out what it is, they can avoid the heist, and just fucking pay it.

“It’s the River Styx, right?” Julia asks, pulling the book toward herself, because she apparently knows this kind of shit offhand. “Lethe’s the one that makes you forget your earthly cares, so you can be reincarnated with a fresh slate. And — oh yeah, it’s Acheron, the river of woe, not the Styx, that the dead have to cross in the myths.”

Wait. What.

“_River of woe_,” Eliot echoes flatly. It can’t be a coincidence that his friendly neighborhood questing creature had used those exact words, the first time they met.

“What?”

He hardly registers her question, lost in thought. This type of nerdy wordplay really is more Quentin’s thing, or Julia’s, apparently, than his, but…

_Wishes aren’t bound by realms_. A wish made on Fillory can take you to Earth, like Quentin’s had. The Underworld is one of the realms, inaccessible to living people, but not, perhaps, to…

Wishes can’t bring back the dead. Unbreakable rule. But… _everything in Fillory is riddled with loopholes_.

Quentin isn’t in the House of the Shades, because he’s a complete soul, whatever that means. And if he hasn’t yet crossed over into Elysium…

_I can’t _suggest_ wishes to you. _

That fucking… lady. What has she been doing all along, if not that?

“Eliot?”

“Just an interesting phrase, that’s all. I think I’ve heard it before.”

* * *

The third night, Eliot wanders his usual stretch of the forest with purpose for the first time. He half expects that the one time he’s actually looking to capture the Winter’s Doe, he won’t be able to find her, but she emerges from the trees when she hears his footfall.

“Have you come to make your wish?” she asks, just as she had the previous night.

“My lady,” Eliot says, without any pleasantries or further ado, “is it possible for you to bring back Quentin Coldwater’s soul from the Underworld?”

“You ask me this now?” she scoffs.

“Well, maybe I was getting bored of drowning in this _river of woe_,” he throws back pointedly, and she just smiles at him. “I’m right, aren’t I? This is about the Underworld rivers, somehow. There’s a way for you to smuggle him out, isn’t there?”

“Took you long enough,” she says, sly and not a little bitchy, which Eliot usually admires in creatures of all kinds, but at this moment, it’s just too much.

“Can you do it, or not?”

“I can do wonders,” she says. “But you should know. It’s not without a price, what you ask.”

“So what, questing creatures moonlight as ferrypeople of the Underworld now?” Eliot snipes. “Name your price. I figure it’s worse than a coin.”

“You don’t pay me,” she says, all business, dropping the affected tone. “I’m neither Gatekeeper nor ferryman. But I was made by gods, and I’m not alive in the same way you are, so I’m allowed to enter and leave the Underworld without issue myself. I’ll be able to broker your deal, let’s say, and negotiate the price on your behalf. You know. _ If you so wish_.” The sarcasm is uncalled for, really.

“What’s the currency?”

“There are other rivers, besides the River of Woe. And one of them is _made_ to bring souls back to life.”

Back to life… _reincarnation_, Julia had said. But she had also said… “The, uh, Lychee?” he tries.

The White Lady rolls her eyes. “_Lethe_. Now, here’s a riddle I once asked your dear, departed _friend_: how much do you have to lose before you’re no longer yourself?”

* * *

“Sense-memory,” Alice says. “That’s the next step.”

They’re back in the council room, gathered around the table like the knights of Quentin Coldwater, on a quest for him. Q would be thrilled, honestly. Eliot imagines the look on his face when he wakes up and…

No. No hope. He won’t survive it, not if it doesn’t work.

Eliot’s not even sure if the spell to create the body will pan out, he reminds himself. And even if it does, does he really believe that he can just _make a wish_, and get what he wants?

The other Penny (maybe he doesn’t like being thought of like that, but thinking of him any other way feels like a betrayal of _their_ Penny, and although Eliot was never close with him, recent events have made him sensitive to the idea of one of their own rotting in the Underworld) has just blipped in and dropped a bunch of scrolls on the table. Disturbingly detailed anatomical drawings of Quentin’s body from the centaurs.

“The centaurs are unparalleled healers,” Alice explains, “but they only created one body part.”

“The wooden arm,” Eliot says, and Alice looks away. Oh, right. She’s the one who ripped it off in the first place.

Julia steps up to the plate. “And it was wood. It worked like his other arm, and looked like it, because they modeled it on the rest of Quentin’s body, which they had in front of them. But our spell is going to try to recreate him, in whole, as he was.”

“From scratch,” Margo says flatly. “We’re going to do something the fucking _centaurs_ couldn’t, without a living model in front of us?”

“Not from scratch,” Alice says, looking up again. “From _memory_. The centaurs are unparalleled, but they didn’t _know_ Q. Not like we do. They could only do so much with the physical model in front of them. But sense-memory is a powerful thing. It’s old, emotional magic.”

“You keep using that term,” Eliot says. “What does it mean, exactly?”

“You don’t just remember what someone looks like, when you miss them. You know how they look in the morning, when they wake up, or when they’re tired, or when they’re happy. You know how they sing in the shower, or complain when they’re sick. You know what they feel like, or smell like, or—”

“Right,” Margo cuts in. “But it seems kind of shady to rebuild someone from biased memories like that. Wouldn’t you just be creating some pin-up version of how you saw them? Which honestly seems morally suspect, from like, an autonomy point of view.”

Margo refrains from pointing out that the morality of magic has historically been something in which Alice is deficient, but just barely. Eliot can see her holding it back.

“But that’s not how the spell works,” Julia interjects, perhaps sensing the impending explosion too. “It’s not just one person creating a blow-up doll; it’s communal. All the core casters have their individual experiences of the person in question, their memories of him, but those are all partial views of the whole. The spell _recreates_ the whole from the areas of overlap. There shouldn’t be gaps because once you start putting something together—objects, bodies—the world and magic _want_ them to be whole. Things remember their original forms, and want to return to them.”

“They just need to be woken up,” Alice says quietly. “Remember what they were before. We can help with that part. We cast, and we remember him.”

“So, we need people who’ve _known_ Q best, with, um, all the senses,” Julia finishes.

Everyone considers that for a moment. “I’m done here, right?” the other Penny asks finally. “Because, I want to help,” he adds, looking at Julia intently, “but the Quentin I knew best, man. A, didn’t know him _that_ way, and B, he was really not… like yours.”

“Just go,” Margo says, and he peaces out, with a last lingering look at Julia. “So, it’s a sex thing,” she concludes bluntly. “I don’t know how much help I’m going to be, because I honestly don’t remember much of that threesome at all. Oh. That was insensitive, wasn’t it?” She looks at Alice. She doesn’t apologize, but she meets her eyes with less animosity than before.

“It doesn’t matter,” Alice says. “It’s not just… a sex thing. I mean, sex is a sensory experience, and obviously having been, um, intimate, will help power the spell, but it’s not the only type of intimacy that matters. It’s how long you’ve known someone, how well.”

_Fifty years_. Eliot hears it in Quentin’s voice, in the throne room. He hears his own voice, not dull and empty, but full of feeling, in the park.

And instead of the bitterness and the bile that rose up in him uncontrollably the other night, he’s hit with a wave of longing, the sense of wonder the memories had inspired in him, those first moments of remembering upon their return from Fillory past.

God, he’s so fucking unstable, lately.

Is it just the specter of Quentin Coldwater, the possibility of having him back in the world, the recollection of his hands on Eliot’s body in that other life, but more than that, his touch on his heart and mind even in this one? Is that what makes Eliot want to believe he can be more than an empty shell, better than the darkest parts of his own self?

That life _mattered_, Eliot realizes now, however they had stumbled upon it, through contrivance and convenience. If only so that Eliot can use his memories of it to fuel this body spell, if only so that the sacrifice of it will bring Quentin back to this life, his real life.

The swelling up of hope is unstoppable, unbearable. How did Quentin _live like this_ all the time?

“How many casters do you need, ideally?” he asks.

“Three,” Julia responds. “Plus the stabilizers on Earth. Alice is obviously in. Me too, because I’ve known Q the longest. So we need…”

“Me three,” Eliot volunteers, before he can second-guess himself.

“Are you sure, baby?” Margo asks, looking concerned. “I mean, I didn’t know you remembered any more of that night than I did.” She plays it off as a joke, but he knows she’s thinking about the early days, when he woke up and she had to tell him that Quentin was dead. She’s wondering if he can handle it, remembering, and she doesn’t even know the half of it.

“I can do this,” he says, and Margo sees enough to understand. “Besides, we need you to stand by. To start the cryo-preservation as soon as the body is created.”

Julia’s looking at him more quizzically. “I didn’t realize you were listening so carefully,” she says. Right, he’d pointedly been staring out the window, facing away from the group, itching for a cigarette, while they went over those details.

“I’m capable of multi-tasking.”

“And you’re on board, now? You believe this will work, all of a sudden?” she asks dubiously.

“I’m not sure I do,” Eliot says. “But like you said, it’s Q. And he’s not here to believe for us. So.”

* * *

It’s strangely fitting. After that horrible bonfire, which felt like a finality, burning their memories of Quentin to ash in lieu of a body, they’ll build another fire. But this time, their memories are the kindling they’ll offer up, to forge his new body from the flames.

Everything’s set. The ingredients are gathered, and Kady’s waiting for the signal on Earth. Julia, Alice, and Eliot are arranged in a triangle around the rune circle they’ve made on the floor; Margo’s standing back at the ready, Josh and Penny-23 hovering behind in case anything goes awry.

It’s a complex, dangerous, and murky type of magic, using something mental, or spiritual, whatever memories are, to create something physical.

“Here’s to the Physical Kids,” Eliot says. He’s trying to focus on the difficult motions of the spell, instead of on how he’s going to have to go through them while calling all his most painful, secret, repressed, (_beloved_) memories of Quentin to the forefront of his mind, so that the spell can take their imprint.

“I’ll drink to that, after,” Margo replies from somewhere behind him, and he loves her for it.

Alice doesn’t understand or acknowledge his comment. Julia says, “Well, actually, I’m not—”

Useless.

Anyway, up first with the sense memories: Alice Quinn. Before she casts, though, Alice hesitates. “Are we doing the right thing?” she asks.

“Oh, for fuck’s sake,” Margo snaps. “This isn’t the time for wedding day jitters, Quinn.”

“No, I mean. We don’t have a way to get his soul, right?”

“We’ll find one,” Julia promises. She looks chagrined, like it’s her own failing that they haven’t discovered a way yet, and exhausted, like she’s stayed up searching night after night. “But we have to build his body now, Alice. The longer we wait, the less likely it is our memories will be clear enough, and it’s already been months.”

“I know,” Alice says. “But. What if we don’t? What if there isn’t a way, and we just have this empty body, lying here, forever? What will we do with it? How could we just… give up, get rid of it? Margo’s got a kingdom to rule, and we’ve all got… the body can’t, we can’t all stay in stasis, forever, right?”

Marvelous time for Alice to discover ethics.

Also potentially a marvelous time for Eliot to speak up. He could tell them about the White Lady, that he _does_ have a way, discuss the pros and cons, and come to a consensus together.

But then, it doesn’t really affect them, does it?

It’s clear, now, why the White Lady sought him out. It’s because he’s the only person alive who has the necessary knowledge to exploit an obscure loophole with the very specific wish in question.

The fact is, he shared a life with Quentin, which never happened, and which they shouldn’t have remembered in the first place. They never spoke of it again, with each other, or, as far as he knows, with anyone else. That made it easy enough to tuck away into the recesses of their minds, in the days and months that followed, and continue on as they were before. It also makes it remarkably convenient when you’re thinking about erasing the memory of that life in one of its two participants. After all, how will anything be any different, if Quentin doesn’t remember it at all?

But perhaps Alice’s hesitation is contagious, because it trips in Eliot a delicate string, finely quivering, of doubt. Or perhaps it’s just that this spell demands that he open the lockbox of his memories, and that makes him vulnerable to them. Either way, against his will, he thinks about the doorway he made, in the Happy Place, and how.

_Someone good and true loves you. And he went out on a limb. And yeah, it was a little crazy, but you knew. You _knew_ this was a moment that truly mattered…_

“Fen can rule Fillory,” Margo says. She meets Eliot’s eyes, fiercely, or with something like shame. “I can hold this spell as long as it takes. This kingdom is important to me, but it’s not more important than my fucking friends.”

Eliot faces down the uncertainty, finding strength in her, as always. She’s right. Nothing matters more than this.

Okay, yes, fine, he had known. He can admit it. Eliot had known, even then, that it was his best chance he was giving up, when he turned Quentin down. That they could have built a life together again, made it work.

And sure, it had felt like bravery in that moment, escaping from the Happy Place, to imagine seizing that chance, and everything Quentin had offered. Making this wish, taking these memories from Quentin, effectively closes the door it had taken so much effort to open. Something wretched and selfish in him is clawing him from the inside out, screaming that if Eliot does this, he loses his chance.

But then, even _with_ the memories of their life together, no matter what he had said at first, Quentin had eventually gotten back together with Alice. Eliot had rejected him, of course, so it’s not like he could really judge, but it does seem like proof of a different sort of concept.

He would never say that it hurt _more_ than finding out Quentin was dead, but it was a blow, when Margo told him. Not just that he had _lost_ his chance, but that he had never fucking had one, after all. It invalidated—it obliterated—it was like everything he had believed, or wanted desperately to believe, freeing himself from the Monster, seeing Quentin’s face light up in the park… it was just his own selfishness, masquerading as courage, leading him astray. Quentin had gotten back together with Alice, like he was always meant to do. She had been with him, when he died. Of course.

Oh, if Eliot had dared to say yes, the first time…

Quentin, with his goodness, and his integrity, and his kindness, would have stayed with Eliot. No matter how trapped he felt, when he saw the other options opening in front of him, in the real world, not the dreamscape that was Fillory past and the fairytale that was the Mosaic, he would have stuck doggedly by his decision, even as he realized it wasn’t truly his choice. He would have sacrificed himself like he was _so fucking eager_ to do in Blackspire, like he _did_ do, in the end…

Eliot chokes back the horrible tangle of emotion that rises up in him at that. It doesn’t matter, now.

The point is, Eliot could have built his happiness on it, on Quentin’s sacrifice. Even if he would have to live, always, with the knowledge that he was the runner-up, the alternate, it would still have been a life with Quentin. Selfish and fucked up, but what do you expect from someone whose happiest memories are the ones that flowered in the graveyard dirt of Quentin’s wife, of Teddy’s mother?

Turning Quentin down was Eliot’s greatest regret, his deepest shame, and an act of cowardice. But ironically, it turns out it was probably the kindest thing he could have done, setting him free to be with the person he truly wanted.

If all goes to plan, Quentin will never know. And to that end, it’ll be easier if no one else does either.

Eliot will remember, but Eliot remembers now, and knows the truth of it. However much that truth hurts, and may continue to hurt, it doesn’t hold a candle to Quentin being gone.

That’s it, then. Eliot is going to do this. He’s resolved.

It feels anticlimactic.

Oh, like he was ever going to do anything else. For Quentin Coldwater’s life?

_You sacrifice for people you love_.

For him, Eliot will be selfless. For him, Eliot can be kind.

But first, Eliot needs to be a manipulative bastard, because they need a body for this soul he’s wishing back to life.

“Alice,” he says, and holds out his hand. After a moment, she takes it, hesitantly. He lowers his voice, meets her eyes, and tries to find Quentin’s words. “He’s not here to believe for us,” he repeats. “And believing only in the things you know for a fact isn’t the point. So yeah, we don’t know what will happen. We don’t know if what we’re doing is right. But don’t we have to try? To believe it’ll work out anyway?”

“Faith?” she asks, unconvinced.

“Hope,” he corrects, and that’s the magic word, because he sees her face harden into resolve.

Here we go, Eliot thinks, waiting his turn as Alice starts to cast. Just this once, time to let himself remember.

* * *

_Interlude_

“Quentin Coldwater. A word, if you will.”

Of all the creatures in all the worlds, the White Lady of Fillory is not particularly the one Quentin is expecting, as he steps through a door and prepares to descend deeper into the Underworld.

“What? How are you—are you _dead_?”

“Are you?”

“I’m pretty well informed that I am, actually.”

“And, do you _wish_ to stay that way?”

“What?”

“You didn’t read the book wrong, Quentin. There was a third wish. I never granted it to you.”

“What? I thought you said—”

“What’s the hold-up here?” comes a voice from the unseen depths. It echoes like they’re in a cave, or at the top of a cavernous stairwell, but Quentin can’t make anything out beyond the White Lady, glowing palely as she is in the darkness.

She holds up a hand to silence Quentin before he can speak. “Privileged messenger. Soulmate’s last request of the dead. I filed the paperwork, but since Mr. Coldwater has apparently jumped the line due to his, ah, association, with one of your staff members, I had to catch him before he crossed the veil. You can go check with registration.” She listens until they hear the echoing of footsteps, then silence. Abruptly, she drops the bored, bitchy tone. “That buys us a few minutes, if my cock of a brother is to be believed. Quickly now. Am I correct in assuming that if your unused wish could be transferred to any person now living, you would want me to grant it to Eliot Waugh?”

_Eliot_. “Yes. Yes,” Quentin says, thinking of Eliot alive, Eliot at the bonfire, the peach. Peaches and plums, motherfucker, and then that fucking tragic burning peach, and what it might have meant. _Soulmate,_ she just said. “I know you said you couldn’t make me happy, back then, but for him. For him, please, I want him to be okay. Please, if there’s anything you can do.”

“I’m doing it,” she says shortly. “This is what he wished for.”

“For… me? He wished for me? But I thought you said you can’t… you have limits, you can’t pierce the veil. You couldn’t get Alice’s—”

“Persephone’s veil hangs over the House of the Shades, and obscures my reach. As does the veil that masks the dead souls who have moved on, whether to Elysium or Tartarus, for that veil was made by Hades himself. But those aren’t the only paths a soul in Limbo can take. And one of them leads back to your world.”

As if her words are a cue, the unseen attendant returns. This time, he seems to be yelling down into the bottom of a well. “This one’s been flagged for Reincarnation, sir! It must have been a mix-up. But I just checked, and that’s what they told me at Registration.”

The White Lady winks.

“That was you?” Quentin whispers.

“Switched a few cards, easy,” she says, with a little twirl of her fingers. “Theoretically, this was a wish with many parts. Your Eliot needed a little help with the wording, but we got there in the end.”

“Drink of the waters of the Lethe, and find oblivion, earthly soul,” croaks a frankly alarming voice, and suddenly it’s like storm clouds clearing over a twilight scene. There’s a deep, dark river, a rickety raft, and an old man who’s all beard and rags, holding out a wooden cup that he’s apparently filled with water from the stream. He doesn’t look like someone you’d want to take any drink from, ever. “Only then may you embark upon your next cycle of life.” He then seems to register that there are two individuals in front of him, one of them inhuman. “Begone, creature. This is not your realm.”

“And the Lethe isn’t, strictly speaking, your river, but we go where needs must, do we not, ferryman? I am as god-touched as you, and can walk in any realm as I please.”

“But you do not have the power to cross the realms!”

“Yes, but I have siblings, who occasionally prove themselves useful in that regard.”

“Charon?” Quentin asks, kind of excited about it, drawing attention from their bickering. “The ferryman of the Underworld?”

“He’ll take you across the river, and you’ll wake up in your new body,” the Lady says firmly.

“For a price,” the old man adds, with a sinister sort of grin.

“It’s a coin, right?” Quentin recalls from somewhere. “The price to cross the river is a coin.”

“That’s to go the other way, boy, _into_ the Underworld. Different river, for those souls who still enter by the old ways, not these newfangled Mirror Bridges and whatnot.” He spits, like Quentin had meant to die in the Mirror Realm just so he could travel to the Underworld via Mirror Bridge. “The price for reincarnation is less material, more spiritual.” He offers the wooden cup again. River water.

“The Lethe,” Quentin realizes, turning to the White Lady with wide eyes. “I’ll forget everything?”

“Everything,” Charon promises, with entirely too much relish.

“I don’t want—” Quentin starts, but she holds up her hand again.

“All memories of a life fully lived,” she says, forming each word carefully. “That’s the exact price, is it not?” Charon nods. She turns to Quentin. “Fortunately for you, you have a set to spare.” And before he can put it together, she goes on, “Quentin Coldwater died before age 30, and has memories of that _complete_, but tragically short life. But he also lived from his 20s into his 80s, in an alternate timeline, and has the memories of that much fuller, _almost_ complete life, barring the early decades. We would, of course, offer you the larger set as payment. For your understanding and discretion.”

Quentin knows card games. Whatever sleight of hand she’s been doing this whole time, she’s laid down her trump card.

But even as the ferryman is considering the offer… “No,” Quentin says. “You’re asking me to give up… I won’t lose that. How can I…”

“You named Eliot Waugh as the successor to your unwished wish. This is what he asked for, and this is the price he was willing to pay. He’ll carry the memories, for both of you.”

“Peaches and plums,” Quentin whispers. “Did that mean… did he love me, that way, after all? Did he regret not taking that chance? Is that what he was trying to tell me?”

The way she looks at him is just the way he remembers his last glimpse of her, after Alice, before he opened his eyes and found himself, hopeless, back on earth. Sorrowful, and impossibly old. Strange, unexpected sympathy from a creature who has probably seen hundreds if not thousands of desperate souls. “The price _you’ll_ pay is that you may never remember enough to ask him that, yourself.”

God. He’d lose all recollection of Arielle, and Teddy. Eliot as he was then, and all those happy years they shared. Fucking Eliot. What the fuck was he thinking?

_Probably_, returns the part of Quentin’s mind that, after fifty years together, always speaks in Eliot’s crispest, most inimitable cadence, _that you’ll get more time with Alice, and Julia. Margo, Kady, Josh, the other Penny. And, of course, Eliot as he actually is now. Sounds like a bargain to me, Q._ Sure, but…

“I got back together with Alice,” Quentin says to himself. “If I don’t even remember asking Eliot to give it a shot, if I don’t _understand_ what he meant when he broke through in the park, if… oh. He’s never going to tell me, is he?” The White Lady says nothing. Fucking Eliot, he thinks again. Of course, even if he’s very possibly _in love with Quentin_ (and doesn’t that thought still spark up his whole undead self), he’s not going to say a word while Quentin potentially lives out a happily ever after with somebody else.

“Very well, I deem the fare sufficient. But my time is not unlimited,” Charon interjects.

“How does it work?” Quentin asks.

“Like I said then. I can take things away.”

“Like you would’ve taken my memories of Alice?”

“Precisely. It’s a larger chunk, but a cleaner cut. An alternate timeline that you didn’t think you were going to remember anyway? It doesn’t intersect with much else in your memory; you hardly ever spoke about it after the fact. No one else living will think to ask.”

“But Eliot. He’ll be alone in this. He’ll suffer?”

“This is_ what he wanted_,” she says, impatient now. “You are the deepest wish of his truest heart. He asked me to extract these memories from you, so that you can return to him. Will you grant him his wish?”

“Yes,” Quentin manages. He’s thinking of Arielle’s bright smile and musical laugh, the weight of Teddy in his arms, until the day he couldn’t lift him up anymore, a man full grown, Eliot’s soft eyes and graying hair, the _grandkids_, but… clearer than all that, of Eliot’s stricken face as he last saw it, standing with Penny at his own memorial service. “Yes, do it.”

She shrugs. “I mean, you gave up your wish, so it isn’t actually your choice. But I’m glad you agree. This always hurts more when people are unwilling.”

Well, that’s comforting.

As she steps forward, though, a realization hits him and he says, “Wait. Wait. Just one more thing.” The ferryman taps his foot, but Quentin’s mind is racing. All the wordplay, all the emphasis, the callbacks to Alice. Questing creatures in Fillory are scrupulously honest, but they can deal in double meanings, just as the fairies do. For all her sympathy, the White Lady has gone out of her way to show her skill in trickery and semantics, on this trip to the Underworld. _This is a card trick._ And it’s not on Quentin. It’s on the person who made the wish.

“You told me,” he says, looking at her outstretched hand, “that if you took my memories of Alice, the ones that were making me so sad, I would find my way back to sadness again, eventually. No matter how far I ran.”

It’s intuition, a leap of faith, a lifetime of obsessing over works of fiction. But he thinks he sees a smile starting on her face, though she says nothing.

Quentin smiles too. “Fifty years. Peaches and plums. Maybe I fell in love with him there. Or maybe it was all there before, and that life is just where we had the space to realize it. But take it all away, and I have to believe I’ll find my way back to him, somehow. No matter how far _he_ runs.”

He had thought he was ready to die, but he realizes, suddenly, that he wants to live. He wants to know what happens next.

“Still wiser than you appear,” she whispers, like a promise, and reaches her hand into his chest.

Then it’s all screaming, and pain, and finally, in a splash of cool water, blissful, black oblivion.

* * *

So, funny story. Turns out, it’s easy to love selflessly when the object of your love is dead. Once he’s back, on the other hand…

Eliot’s determined to keep his distance, let Alice and Julia take the brunt of Quentin’s recovery and gratitude, but that determination lasts all of five seconds once he sits on the edge of Quentin’s bed and holds his warm, living body in his arms and squeezes tight.

All right, so Eliot is a selfish person with no impulse control. But they’re going to live on different _worlds_, again, and Quentin’s going to be absorbed with Alice, just like he was the last time they lived on different worlds, so it’s not like Eliot will see him enough for that to matter.

And anyway, when Quentin makes his heart stop, wondering aloud if his death was suicide, wondering whether his life is worth the price, Eliot knows he did the right thing, selfish or not. As the person who’s paying it, after all, he’s in an ideal position to reassure him.

Not that Quentin can know that.

It _is_ worth it. Just the fact that Quentin is here, and Eliot can hold him, however briefly—Eliot has no regrets. Not a one.

But then, Quentin says, “Shouldn’t I be able to save myself by now? I’ve been trying long enough,” and Eliot wants to shake him. No, he thinks angrily, no you haven’t. Not by half. Try another fifty years, you fucker, or beat your own record, and go for sixty. You outlived me once, and you’re going to do it again, you have to, because it doesn’t work the other way, baby, I’ve tried it, and I’m not brave like you, _I don’t work_. You don’t get to _leave me_, not again—

Something very odd happens. There’s no reason for the sudden uneasiness Eliot feels, rising up his throat and then plummeting down into his stomach, at the idea that he can never speak these shameful thoughts out loud. It’s ridiculous, because in no universe would Eliot _ever_ verbalize anything so intimate, and vulnerable, and raw, least of all to a man whose girlfriend literally just vacated the room. If he hadn’t confessed his feelings so baldly over literal decades in Fillory past, and hadn’t done it when they got back, why the fuck would he do it now?

But there was always the chance that he _could_. Or even if he couldn’t, there was the chance that something would spark a memory of something from that life, and he could meet Quentin’s eyes, or carefully _not_ meet his eyes, either way assured that whatever he was recalling, Quentin knew it too. That once upon a time, this experience, the beauty of all life, was something they had shared.

Now, that whole life is like a tree falling in the dark, empty forest of Eliot’s mind. Does it matter? Does it make a sound?

_Did it happen?_ he had asked, uncertain even then.

_Fifty years.  
_

And so Eliot had believed. _It happened._

But there’s no one left to answer him, now. Eliot is alone.

He doesn’t let himself think it. He can’t. (Oh, fuck, what has he—)

* * *

Still, Margo drags him to Brakebills for a check-up, and she would find it odd and conspicuous _not_ to drop in on Quentin and see how he’s doing, before returning to Fillory. But then they run into Julia and Eliot thinks, why not spend a few days haranguing various Muggles in Manhattan to find Quentin the perfect apartment? Why not throw a surprise housewarming party at his new place? He tries to feel like a good friend for inviting Alice, even as part of him wonders if one day, she and Quentin will be hosting events together and inviting _him_. Probably. That’s the natural course of these things, isn’t it?

Regardless, Eliot’s a superb host, so he should exercise his skills in that capacity for his friends while he can. He’s the one who had hosted Quentin and Arielle’s wedding breakfast, after all: an intimate affair but no less accomplished for it, given the serious handicaps he was working against, starting with Fillory’s disappointing lack of champagne and ending with a shack as venue.

Not to mention that the newlyweds hadn’t stumbled out of said shack, flushed and laughing and obviously well sated, until some of their guests were already leaving,

And Eliot, who had pushed Quentin away the morning after their first anniversary of slaving away at the Mosaic, who had pushed Quentin _toward_ Arielle because—well, never mind that, but anyway, he did it to himself—Eliot had thought, oh, fuck, what have I—

Now, Eliot goes back to Fillory. Isn’t that what he does? It’s his home.

Quentin’s alive. Margo’s High King, and so is Fen, and they’re happy, for the most part, or well, they’re in some kind of dramatic, likely sexual, possibly romantic stalemate that they’re both leaning into the anxiety and anticipation of tremendously, so that’s close enough. Eliot isn’t king, but he’s living a royal life without the threat of his head being lopped off, without the fairies up his ass, without magic being lost, without being possessed by a monster. He doesn’t need the cane anymore, he can tolerate solid foods, he can have a glass of wine, even if he can’t drink himself into oblivion. And why would he want to? He’s happy. He should be happy. This is the best possible outcome to his life, his life, which as he confessed to Margo once, had never worked before.

It was Fillory that saved him, then, wasn’t it? And Fillory that saved him now, too, by giving him a way to save Quentin, with its riddles and its loopholes, its fairytale magic.

Eliot should be grateful. Eliot should be happy. This is more than he ever expected to have. It shouldn’t feel like it’s _not enough_.

“Seriously, Ember and Umber. Chaos and order. You’re not going to tell me how you got the idea that the time skip bullshit had something to do with their hormonal imbalance?” Margo asks, as they make their way back through the castle.

Eliot can hardly say, “I got the idea from a questing creature waxing philosophical on the nature of her existence. Oh, and by the way, this was just before I made a wish to bring Quentin back to life, because I don’t know how to live without him. Love: who knew?”

He shrugs and tries to keep walking. She grabs his arm and stops him. They’re still in the middle of a hallway, but it’s empty.

“Why does this bother you so much?” Eliot asks, aiming for casual.

“Quentin said you probably read the books because you missed him,” Margo tries, in a not at all convincingly casual voice.

“I was there,” Eliot replies. “I heard him.” He doesn’t pull away, though. Maybe it’s just the fact that she’s grabbed him roughly, unthinking—not mindful of his injuries or reminding herself that he’s _him_ and not a monster who chokes his friends for fun—that’s startled him into engaging with her clumsy attempts to make him talk.

They’re neither of them particularly good at this. The Secrets trial had been... well, a trial, for them.

She takes his stillness for the concession it is, and makes a face. “Weren’t we supposed to be able to be real with each other, after all the near-death whatevers?”

“I love you, Margo,” he echoes himself.

“Yeah. I love you, too. But you’re not being honest with me, El.”

“And you’ve been too busy worrying about me to be real with _me_,” he returns. “Too busy doing everything that has to be done.”

“Well, someone’s got to! Since you’re just—”

“What, useless?”

“Don’t put words in my fucking mouth,” she spits out, and then sighs suddenly. “No, El, that’s not what I meant, and you know it.”

“I know,” he admits. She’s still gripping his forearms tight. Eliot tugs until she lets him go, then pulls her into an embrace which she accepts.

“You’re not wrong,” Margo says. “You were gone, and I had to—no one else could—I did what I had to do. I always do what I have to do.”

“You are the toughest bitch.”

“Fen tried to get me to cry it out, you know,” she says, drawing back to look up at him with a laugh. “She went through these elaborate Fillorian mourning rituals, and I think it actually means you’re no longer married, by the way? Sorry about that.”

“Are you, really?” he asks, raising his eyebrows, but she ignores him pointedly.

“I told her that I couldn’t start crying, because if I did, I’d never stop. I’d never be able to cry it all out, not if you were really—”

“I’m back, Bambi,” Eliot says, as gentle as he thinks she’ll allow him to be.

“Yeah. And so is Q,” she adds, and this time, it’s his turn to ignore her pointedly. “But are you, really? Because sometimes I look at you, and it’s like—like you didn’t come back, all the way. _Not_ because I think you’re him,” she emphasizes. “But because you’re not acting like—it’s supposed to get better, isn’t it? Now that we’re not all fucked, or dead, or possessed. It’s going to get better, right?” _You’re_ going to, her eyes say.

“I hope so,” he says quietly, and he can almost convince himself that it’s the truth. “Because otherwise, what’s the point? If there’s never anything good.”

“Fuck. A few months without dick, and _you_ sound like Quentin, too.” Seems like Margo’s filled her quota for vulnerability.

“I know, what the fuck. Converting the susceptible, dick-deprived _misérables _must be his discipline,” Eliot says, and it doesn’t even really make sense at all, but they both burst out laughing, like they’re still sitting at a high table, setting Trials upon unsuspecting first-years and playing at being the King and Queen they didn’t know they would become.

And despite everything that’s happened since those relatively simple days, he feels a little lighter, just for a few seconds. He’s still here, with his Bambi. It’s not the same, it never can be, but it’s something. It has to be enough.

“Margo,” he says, once they’ve stopped laughing. “Do you ever think that maybe we’d be better off if we _were_ the kind of people who could cry it all out?”

There’s a long pause.

“Yeah. Me neither.”

All the same, when they part (a line of nervous, eager sycophants, led by Tick, are waiting to accost Margo outside the throne room), she says, “You’ll find me, right? If you need me to fix whatever’s fucking you up?” Her tone is brusque, but her beautiful Bambi eyes are still worried.

Nothing’s fucking him up. Or everything is. He doesn’t know.

“You’re my first call, Bambi, always,” he assures her, and then lets go of her, so she can get back to work.

* * *

Eliot, on the other hand, doesn’t know what to do with himself.

He could keep attending council meetings, and try to make a useful if less than glamorous contribution to the rule of Fillory. Or he could lounge about in a deliciously dissolute fashion as Margo’s kept man, livening up the court with scandal and style. He knows she wouldn’t really care, either way; she just wants him to be okay.

The trouble is, he doesn’t want to do either. He doesn’t feel like the serious, responsible ruler (or ruler-adjacent person, now), or the stunning, superficial rake. They’re just parts he has to play, and the costumes don’t quite fit. It’s not as acute as it was, when Quentin was dead, but he’s still so tired of it, pretending all the time.

But what is Eliot, if he’s not pretending? If he doesn’t belong in Fillory, his self-chosen home, with Margo, the first person who was _his_, then where else can he go?

Brakebills? Even before the Happy Place, it was an endless repeating loop of parties and drinks and drugs, memorable spells and forgettable guys, lit up with meaning only by Margo and—ever so briefly—Quentin, and they’re not there anymore.

The recollection steals upon him slowly, before he’s aware enough to cut it off at the pass. He’s just reflecting that he really does prefer his vests and slacks and suits to Fillorian finery, no matter how flattering and dramatic it is, and wondering if it’s worth heading back to Brakebills after all, to see if he can dig up that one outfit in particular, the one he had worn when…

The one he’d worn for over a year, washing and drying and spelling it determinedly, and Quentin’s too, so that their clothing would serve as a constant reminder of the quest they were on, and the lives that were truly theirs, waiting for their return.

At the one year mark, Quentin had kissed him, and Eliot had taken him to bed, and then Eliot had woken up in the hours before dawn and methodically, piece by piece, put himself back together into that same outfit, more than ever a stark reminder that _this was not real life_. Real life was Margo, needing his help. Real life was “Alice and Q: it’s complicated.” Real life was the quest for magic and the unsolvable puzzle, not Quentin’s soft eyes and strong hands and the siren thrill of his pulse under Eliot’s lips, the closest Eliot would ever get to really touching the warm, dangerous, beating heart at his core.

Fuck. Why is he thinking about this? Eliot shakes himself out of it, deciding to attend the meeting he’s skipping after all, even though he doesn’t actually recall its purpose or participants. Margo and Fen will be there, at least.

It’s been happening more often, though, these memories creeping up on him. Something’s clearly awry, because Eliot has never really let himself remember the quest life before, except when the spell to create Quentin’s new body depended on him doing so. The fact that they came back to a fucked up world on fire that never gave them a chance to breathe honestly helped him out with that. So it felt like a dream most of the time, or like hazy recollections from very early childhood, which he had a master’s degree in repressing anyway.

Maybe the Monster’s possession has just fucked up his mindspace irrevocably, left all his carefully crafted boundaries porous and leaking. Maybe having to draw on these memories openly, for the body spell, has left him more susceptible to random flashes of that life now. Or maybe, when the White Lady had said, “You’ll carry the memories for the both of you,” it was a more literal statement than he had realized, and now he has to take on twice the weight, the burden unshared.

Magic always has a price. Whatever it is, however painful, Eliot’s committed to paying it.

The meeting is already over when he arrives and looks in through the half-open door. Must have been the usual bureaucratic bullshit, from the way Margo’s throwing back a goblet, Fen’s patting her arm with one hand while tapping a knife absently against the table with the other, and Josh is pouring more drinks while obviously trying to make Margo laugh with a running monologue on something or other.

Eliot could go in. Maybe they’d give him shit about missing the main event, but they’d make room. He knows he’s welcome.

He turns around and walks the other way instead, aimlessly. He’s no stranger to long, meandering walks, of course, although he sticks to the castle tonight instead of venturing out into the forest. Somehow, his feet carry him to the doorway of the room where they’re keeping the Fillory clock.

It’s a bad idea. He’s trying to keep his distance, and it’s not like Quentin will just be at home, waiting for his visit. He’s probably out with Julia, or on a date night with Alice, or worse, returning home from one, and Eliot will _walk in on them_…

He goes through the portal anyway. Maybe he can keep on walking, wander his way through the streets of New York in his Fillorian garb, completely unremarked by the busy, self-absorbed passersby. He considers the anonymity of it, finds it appealing.

Eliot steps into the apartment to the shock of shattering glass. His heart leaps into his throat, startled by the sound, and stays there, caught by Quentin’s equally surprised gaze, before he swallows it down.

And oh, this is it, he realizes. Maybe he’s known it all along. None of the other roles, none of the other costumes fit, because they don’t have this: Quentin, barefoot in sweatpants, trying and failing in the kitchen. Eliot doesn’t want to be High King, or former-king-turned-advisor, or undisputed party king of Brakebills. He doesn’t want to be an anonymous stranger in the crowd, or a lonely figure in the empty forest. He just wants to be here, with Quentin, whatever that means, even if Quentin is really, truly _with_ Alice. Whatever he’s allowed, whatever he gets, it’s enough.

It’s enough that Quentin sits with him, and laughs with him, and when Eliot nudges him, he nudges back. He’s never thought you could bask in the way someone is silent, but the way Quentin listens, his intent little frown, his obvious huffing annoyance or his equal parts sweet-and-sly, dimpling smile, is as dear and beloved as how he talks about magic, eyes bright and hands waving around in hapless excitement. And the feel of Quentin’s magic against his own: Eliot’s in love with the surety and the strength in those hands, the cleverness, the kindness, the belief behind them.

Eliot discovered telekinesis when he ran a kid over with a bus. Quentin _mends_.

It’s enough. It has to be enough.

But it’s like Eliot has a bruise, and somehow, no matter how much he tries to be aware of it, he keeps knocking the bruised area against something. It’s a truth of the universe, isn’t it? Wounds exist to be aggravated. Why else would the memories of the life he never lived keep cropping up lately, after he’s basically rendered them completely inert? Why else would Quentin’s adorable rambling about sense-memory and negative space and _being whole_ spark the tiniest flicker of something in Eliot that feels unbearably like _hope_?

Maybe, he thinks wildly, Quentin, like one of his objects, _wants_ to remember. Maybe he _can_ piece it together, and he’ll look at Eliot with recognition in his eyes, and Eliot will say, “I’m sorry I took it from you, I had to, _I love you_, there was no other way—”

And Quentin will look at him with big, dark eyes full of awkward pity, and say “I’m sorry, but I’m with—”

Well, that douses that flame.

Eliot should leave. This is a dangerous road, and he should look at the takeoff, and walk on by.

But Quentin’s in pain. Quentin’s lost and aimless, questioning the path of his life post-resurrection, and if Eliot can help, even a little, by offering up something of his own heart, even if he can never offer up the unwanted whole of it…

Eliot stays.

It shouldn’t be easier to talk about how he’s been feeling with Quentin, of all people, given the circumstances, than it has been with anyone since he met the White Lady in the forest, but oddly enough, the words come readily. The thing is, they’re good friends before anything else. They’re good at the companionable silences, but also at the sharing of experiences, in a way Eliot’s never been with anyone before, not even Margo. Not because he doesn’t trust her, because he does, but—she’s the one he trusts to have his back, to cut a bitch for him, no questions asked. She’d defend him to the death, eat his enemies’ hearts in the marketplace.

Quentin would, too, brave little toaster that he is, but he’s also a soft place for Eliot to land, to rest his head.

But Eliot’s walking a tightrope, being honest about some things and not others. It’s too easy, with Quentin. Sometimes, he slips. Hence, the fucking farm gets him again.

It’s not like he and Quentin had ever talked about it once they got back from the quest. But Eliot hadn’t realized how much he took it for granted that Quentin had these little drops of knowledge about him, ones that he’d collected, drip by drip, filling a reservoir over fifty years.

Maybe they couldn’t remember them all, or didn’t try to. In fact, Eliot hardly remembers telling him about the farm, except that it had something to do with the garden they planted, a few years in. He doesn’t recall what Quentin said, only the concerned, understanding look on his face, the one that had made Eliot instinctively recoil and brush it off, saying, “If I can draw upon my hateful past to make any sort of contribution to this quest, by keeping you, the quester, fed and watered, it is a sacrifice worth making. Don’t worry your pretty little head about me, Q.”

“What do you mean? This stage of the quest is _ours_,” Quentin says, with a frown.

Eliot laughs. “Yeah, but come on. You’re the true believer, here. You saw time travel, and an unsolvable puzzle, and thought, ‘Maybe I’m the one who solved it.’” It blows Eliot’s mind, the way Quentin never sees how rare and extraordinary it is, the ability to put impossible things together like that.

Quentin gives him an incredulous look. “El, if it weren’t for you, I’d have given up after a couple of weeks, remember? Maybe I was the one who came up with the idea, but I couldn’t keep trying, day after day, if I didn’t have you to remind me what I believed. To believe in _me_.”

“Good,” Eliot says, instead of all the words that crawl up into his throat and want to escape at _that_. “Write that down. And then, one day, when you finish this thing, when you put down the final tile, and you go down in the annals of nerdy Fillorian fanboy history as the person who solved the Mosaic, and give your acceptance speech, you can say, ‘I couldn’t have done this without Eliot Waugh.’”

Quentin rolls his eyes at the theatrics, but he’s smiling. “Yeah. I’ll do that.”

Eliot doesn’t actually know what the final design was. He knows he died, and Quentin solved the Mosaic, and gave the key to Jane Chatwin. He never asked. And now, he’ll never know.

Well, he wouldn’t have known if Quentin had stayed dead, either, would he? At least, this way, Quentin’s alive. All for the price of a few memories, and a few white lies that aren’t hurting anybody. It’s fine.

But then Quentin, all oblivious, has Eliot break a mug and take a piece, for _safekeeping_, and Eliot almost breaks himself open, ready to spill the whole truth, pointlessness and heartbreak be damned.

Oh, this is dangerous. The tightrope, the slippery slope, and Eliot’s a man tempted by the ground beneath. Because he _wants_ to slip. He wants to _fall. _ Selfishly, he wants to tell Quentin all of it, and see what happens. Because maybe he’ll hit the ground hard and it’ll shatter everything, but at least he won’t be alone in it anymore. Because some part of him, stained with the indelible traces of Quentin’s belief, is hoping, irrationally, that Quentin will still be his soft place to land.

_Ex-dea ex machina._ Saved by the entrance of Julia Wicker, ex-goddess extraordinaire.

What the fuck is he doing?

He shuts himself the fuck up.

This, Eliot reminds himself, is the price he promised to pay. He carries the memories; he doesn’t get to burden Quentin with them, or his unrequited feelings, no matter how kind and understanding he might be. (No matter how much this is hurting him, for reasons he can’t quite rationalize or comprehend.)

Eliot will keep them safe, he thinks. He can do that much.

* * *

He should stay in Fillory, and not come back.

But Eliot comes back. He can’t stay away.

It’s a thing that normal friends do, right, when they live in different worlds? They visit.

Maybe he and Quentin visit a bit much (he gathers from Julia’s raised eyebrows and lack of comment on the number of occasions she gets home to see him already lounging on the couch), but they’re allowed a little clinginess after the shit time they’ve had, lately.

It’s fine. Actually, it’s better than fine. Eliot finds himself paying attention in meetings, engaging himself in the fights Margo’s picking (whether to rein her in or egg her on), staying up to date with the causes Fen’s championing.

Eliot means what he said: he doesn’t want to be king anymore. He doesn’t think he was a particularly spectacular king, or even a good one, although much of that might be attributable to the Beast and the gods and the fairies. And he doesn’t know if the role he’s playing now—advisor of all trades, High-King-Whisperer when anyone needs something from either Margo or Fen (mostly Margo) that they’re too afraid to bring up themselves—is one he would have chosen for himself. But it feels more doable than it did before, now that he can disappear through the portal and bring his week back to Quentin.

He can make dinner while Quentin pores over magic texts or mends the objects of the day, and talk out a particularly harrowing negotiation he just went through over a glass of wine. And Quentin, reliably, will geek out about the Fillorian parties involved, theorize endlessly, and then give really good advice.

It makes Eliot feel like what he’s doing day-to-day in Fillory is just a regular, boring job, which is an idea he never thought he would appreciate before, but it’s weirdly comforting. Maybe he has responsibilities, and they’re important, but they don’t constitute the entirety of his miserable life, stretching out hopelessly before him.

It makes him feel like a man who’s just working abroad. Like stepping into the apartment through the portal is coming home.

A little delusion never hurt anybody, right?

What does it matter if Quentin spends the rest of _his_ week fucking Alice Quinn, and loving her, and choosing her?

Eliot’s getting the hang of it, this balancing act. He can split himself like this, into the days he works, and the hours he lives for; into the boring things he has to do, and the precious things he gets to have.

The trick is not to look down. Not to imagine all the impossible things he wants.

* * *

The one good thing that could be said about the morning after on the Mosaic was that it wasn’t as awful as their _first_ morning after. More awkward, less angry. But it was also, in its way, far more dangerous.

The first time, at Brakebills, Eliot had woken up to Quentin chasing after Alice, looking like he was about to be sick, and Eliot had thought, of course. He’s straight, he’s in love with his girlfriend, he was drunk, he was high, ergo he regrets it. Of course he does. And later, he’d been so grateful to keep Quentin’s friendship in the midst of the shitstorm that was their lives that he’d pushed the whole encounter to the back of his mind, filed under “things I can never have.”

Their second go-around has more possibility: Q’s lonely, Eliot’s his friend, they’re trapped together on the equivalent of a deserted island, and no one’s sexually inflexible, not under the right constellation of circumstances. So as Quentin hems and haws, sitting on the Mosaic with him the morning after their first anniversary of working on it, Eliot realizes he could have him again, like this. Just as long as he bears in mind that the whole thing comes with a built-in expiration date.

Oh, but it would _hurt_.

Eliot’s weak for him, though, so if Quentin asks, he knows he won’t say no. How can he say, “I can’t. I can’t have this, just for now. Don’t you see how cruel it is, offering me everything I want, when I know that it’s just an interlude for you? When we get back, I’m a temporary blip on your path to happily ever after, just like I was that night, the one you’ll forever think of as the night that ruined everything with the love of your life, and the one I’ll always dream of as the closest I ever flew to burning up in mine?”

Until last night, his mind provides unhelpfully. Because now he has a whole new set of memories, in blazing color, to remind him of what he’s had, what he’ll lose, inevitably, when they make it back to reality.

Eliot will have to stand back and watch it happen, anyway. He doesn’t have to torment himself further with the forbidden taste of impossible things he’ll never get to keep.

So he can’t let Quentin ask. He says, “Let’s save our overthinking for the puzzle, yeah?”

And then, in the days and weeks that follow, when Quentin keeps looking at him like he wants to _say something_, and getting pissy when Eliot keeps finding ways to sidestep the conversation, Eliot needs something stronger than the challenge of an impossible task to keep him at bay.

Enter Arielle: the sacrifice to Alice Quinn that Eliot’s not willing to be. It’s an undeniable fact that when Quentin makes it back to real life, and he’s back in Alice’s orbit, everything and everyone else will fall by the wayside. How much better for the casualty to be a little Fillory-past-fling, the cute redhead with the bright smile, rather than Eliot, the friend who’ll keep his assured place by Quentin’s side?

“We could be done tomorrow,” Eliot says. “If you want to live your life, live it here.”

So he gives Quentin a few well-intentioned shoves toward her, makes himself scarce when she drops by. She has an inconvenient beefcake of a boyfriend, not really his type, but Eliot even offers to seduce him, so she’ll have an excuse to act on the mooneyes she’s been casting Quentin’s way.

(That offer makes Quentin look at him strangely for several seconds, before stalking off in aggravated silence, but they never talk about it again.)

Anyway, the boyfriend usefully cheats on her before Eliot has to sacrifice his dignity to the cause. Everything is going according to plan.

And then, said plan backfires spectacularly. Quentin _marries_ her.

Eliot really should have accounted for Quentin’s impractical romantic sensibilities, which allow him to fall in love at the drop of a hat, but with whole-hearted commitment, too. He thinks he ought to be offended on Alice’s behalf, but in retrospect, Quentin had fallen for _her_ irrevocably after they’d fucked as foxes under the influence of Mayakovsky’s morally dubious spellwork, so this sort of surprise-true-love-attack isn’t that off-brand for him.

Maybe, he admits begrudgingly, Eliot should have accounted for Arielle, who’s a real person, with real feelings, unwilling to be a forgettable fling, and frankly undeserving of the unkind way he’s been mentally dismissing her all along.

Well, Eliot’s never claimed to be a good, kind person. He’s a tremendous actor, though. He can play the part.

So Eliot resigns himself to it. He has to. What does it matter, this life or the other, Arielle or Alice? He’ll be Quentin’s best friend, his best man, he’ll throw the fucking wedding breakfast, just so he doesn’t lose him.

It’s enough. Eliot’s happy. He should be happy.

* * *

It’s harder to disregard impossible things when they start doing the equivalent of donning lingerie and parading themselves in front of him, begging him to believe in their attainability. If that analogy makes sense. Whatever, it’s late.

It’s really late, because that meeting ran really long, and Eliot’s getting back to his room for the night, and Quentin Coldwater is standing in the hallway, wringing his hands together nervously outside Eliot’s door, hesitating to knock.

He jumps when he sees Eliot, hand paused in mid-air. “El! I’m sorry. It’s late,” he narrates for no reason. “I wasn’t sure you were, um, up.”

“Obviously, I’m up. What’s wrong?”

“Or, um, busy,” Quentin continues instead of answering. He gives him an awkward once-over, like he’s looking for traces of debauchery on Eliot’s person.

Eliot laughs. He wishes he could get it up for anyone else right now. Midnight assignations with random Fillorians would probably be good for him. “Oh, Q. If _that_ were the case, do you really think I’d be back this early?”

“Look, I learned my lesson walking into your room uninvited in the Cottage, all right?”

“I make no apologies for my widely and frequently appreciated allure,” Eliot says, breezing past him to open the door with his personal unlocking spell. “Now, if you want wine, I hope you’re hiding a bottle in those sweats, because Fillory still hasn’t figured out the grape situation.”

“What are they paying you for, then?” Quentin snarks. He lingers in the doorway, so Eliot can’t close the door with him on the inside. Which is probably a good thing, because the combination of Quentin’s wired, nervous energy, Eliot’s ornate Fillorian bed, and oh, right, the fact that Eliot’s in fucking love with this nerd, is something of a dangerous one, when it comes to Eliot resisting temptation.

“Probably said allure, but I don’t ask. Now, if it’s not alcohol, what can I do for you, tonight?”

“Nothing. I just—I couldn’t sleep.” He wrings his hands together again.

Jesus fucking Christ. When he does that, Eliot wants to pin those beautiful, capable, anxiously fluttering hands above his head and say, “Stay,” until the anxiety bleeds away, leaving only the hot, stunned look in his eyes and the soundless gasp that Eliot can capture with his mouth. He wants—

So yes, that’s one impossible thing.

He looks closer. Quentin’s got circles under his eyes. He seems spooked, somehow.

“Hmm. And Alice wasn’t up for an illicit midnight rendezvous in the library stacks? Hot librarian hijinks, filing and defiling?”

“Eliot!” Ah, there it is, the embarrassed outrage, so much better than the tired sadness.

“Come on, like it wasn’t second highest on your list of fantasies, growing up.”

Quentin splutters, but doesn’t deny it. First on the list was undoubtedly something about Fillory, but that’s a dangerous thought right now.

“Now,” he says firmly, distraction managed, however painfully, “tell me what’s going on.”

“I—it’s stupid,” Quentin mumbles. “I’ve just been having these dreams.”

“Okay,” Eliot says. “You want to elaborate?”

“Do you ever dream about… about the Monster using your body?” Quentin asks hesitantly.

Oh. Eliot sits down on the edge of the bed.

No one had really dared to talk with Eliot about what the Monster had gotten up to with Quentin, when Quentin was dead. They’d exchanged meaningful looks, and maintained meaningful silences. But he’s gathered that it was nothing good. That it was pretty fucking traumatizing, actually. Worthy of nightmares, and sleepless nights.

Of course Quentin’s struggling with it. Shit, Eliot should have realized…

“Not really,” Eliot says now. “I wasn’t really aware of what was going on. I mean, I’ve heard—but I didn’t have to go through it, the way you did. All of you. Q, I’m sorry.”

“What?” Quentin asks, startled. “Why?”

“What? I’m sorry because he hurt you, and he used me to do it. I’m sorry it’s still hurting you now.”

“Oh. Oh, no, El, that’s not what I’m saying. I’m not having nightmares about that.”

“Because I thought maybe, because I’ve been around you so—” Being around Quentin is the only thing that makes Eliot feel remotely—but if it’s _hurting him_…

“I know you’re not him, that’s not what I meant,” Quentin says, like it’s obvious, and then, completely contradicting himself, adds, “It’s just like, he wore your face, he used your hands, and he did these awful, awful things.”

“Yes, I know. That doesn’t exactly disprove my point, though."

Quentin rolls his eyes, looking more like himself, and doesn’t deign to answer the question Eliot’s too afraid to ask. He says, “I wasn’t sure if you were aware, when it was happening; I hoped you weren’t. But now I think, maybe it’s scarier not to know. Because if you don’t know, it could have been _anything_.”

Eliot really doesn’t know where he’s going with this, and is about to say so, when Quentin asks, more quietly, “Weren’t you afraid? When you woke up, after the possession? Of not knowing what had happened to you? Of this… blank space?”

“No,” Eliot says, forcing the word out through the sudden raw tightness in his throat. “No, I didn’t care.”

“What?” Quentin says. He frowns, apparently distracted from his own problem, whatever it is. “How could you not—”

“Q,” Eliot starts, but struggles to explain more than that. Because… what had it mattered, then, if the Monster had tried to destroy the world without a care for anyone in it, burn it all to ashes with a match lit by Eliot’s hands? Hadn’t Eliot wanted to do the same, when Quentin was dead? “The consequences of my possession weren’t exactly at the top of anyone’s problem list, when I woke up,” he says finally.

“Oh. Right.” He’s quiet for a moment, taking that in, before he soldiers bravely on. In a different direction, though. “And now? I know you’re doing better, physically, but we haven’t really talked about how you’re, uh, coping. With the uh, ‘consequences of your possession.’”

Eliot stares at him. “I’m sorry, I was under the impression we were digging into _your_ deep, insomnia-inducing trauma, tonight.”

“You weren’t sleeping either,” Quentin points out, pedant that he is.

Because I was working, Eliot could say, quite honestly, but instead, he finds himself confessing something that he hadn’t even consciously understood, before now. “No one _told_ me what the Monster did, but they didn’t have to. I could see it in how they—Margo touched me, but she kept doing it _on purpose_, you know, like she had to prove something, to herself, or to me, I don’t know. She’s still—and everyone else, well. They didn’t flinch, exactly. But they.” They wanted to. It hadn’t registered, then, how much it bothered him, because everything was unimportant relative to the pall hanging over his existence that Quentin was dead.

“I didn’t go through it like you all did,” he says again. “For me, it was just this loop of all the good times, in the Cottage. A happy place. So I wouldn’t question it. And then I woke up and—how do I have the right to complain about any of it? I’m not the one who suffered, my friends are. _Because of me_. So if they can’t look at me, or touch me the same way—”

The mattress sinks down next to him. Quentin leans into his shoulder, a simple grounding touch. Eliot aches with it. “I was cold, in my dream,” he says to the ground, instead of pressing Eliot to continue. Like he’s drawing strength from Eliot’s honesty, even though really, it’s always the reverse. “It was dark. I didn’t know where I was. I didn’t know how I got there. So I just. I just got up, and came here.”

Scary, but objectively, not the most petrifying thing he could be dreaming about. Obviously, it’s affecting him for some reason he doesn’t necessarily want to share.

“I’d walk,” Eliot says, leaning into him, too, and not pressing, either. “I was doing physical therapy bullshit anyway. So I started walking around the castle at night when I couldn’t sleep. And the forest.” Instead of dwelling on that, however, he gets up, and holds out a perfunctory hand, which Quentin stares at. “Come on, I’ll show you something.” And then, when Quentin shows no signs of getting up, he adds, sing-song, “I found a secret passageway.”

“No, you didn’t,” Quentin says, but he’s grabbed Eliot’s hand and lets himself be pulled to standing. His eyes are lighting up.

“I swear.”

“Seriously?”

“_Very_ useful to hide out from all the stealth nannies Bambi was employing at the time.”

“Eliot,” Quentin lectures, a little annoyed, as they walk along the deserted corridors. He brushes Eliot’s hand with his own, more of an admonishment than a caress. “She was worried about you. With good reason, given that you don’t exactly have a history of taking your own well-being seriously.” That is really rich, coming from _him_, but Eliot doesn’t say that, because Quentin adds, gentle and sarcastic at the same time, “If she isn’t behaving exactly the same with you, it’s probably because, oh, I don’t know… _she still is._ Worried, I mean. It’ll be okay. Give it time.”

God, what is it about Quentin, that empty clichés don’t sound empty, coming from him? Eliot thinks it has something to do with the shadow of sadness that never fully leaves him, the way he struggles out of every vise in which the universe tries to crush him, and still emerges with his face turned to the sky, eyes full of hope.

It makes you believe that if someone like that can exist in this dreadful shithole of a universe, that anything is possible, even something good.

“Q. It was traumatizing. She was _mother-henning_ me,” Eliot complains, instead of saying any of that. “_Bambi_. It’s unnatural.”

“I dare you to call her a mother hen to her face.”

Quentin is then distracted from his scolding-slash-comforting by their arrival at what is, indeed, a secret door behind a tapestry.

It isn’t concealing anything exciting, just a long passageway that magically brings you to the other wing of the castle, even though there’s no physical evidence that it’s running either over or under the building. However, Quentin feels along the walls and speculates and geeks out about the illusion magic the expected amount.

Something about the hour, or the low-stakes not-even-an-adventure, has shifted the mood between them into levity. Eliot finds himself talking about today’s clusterfuck of a meeting, which gets Quentin laughing, and some of the shadows fade from his face, and Eliot couldn’t say what expressions are playing across his own. He does know that he wishes the passageway would never end, that they could just walk in the dim magical candlelight, side-by-side, together, forever, as recompense for all the nights he’s spent walking alone.

Another impossible thing. They emerge, of course, into a hallway not far from the room where the Fillory clock portal resides. A natural end to the unexpected visit.

Quentin turns to him suddenly, laughter gone, speaking with alarming earnestness. “Whatever the Monster did, El. You have to know, it wasn’t your fault.”

Eliot rolls his eyes. “Come on. How can you, of all people, stand there and treat me like I wasn’t responsible… like I didn’t do something really stupid, which ended up hurting a lot of people, not excluding you?”

“Because I know you,” Quentin says. “Whatever the Monster did, with your hands, with your face. _You’d _never hurt me.” And oh, _this_ is the impossible thing, the look in his eyes now: the naked belief, the trust. In Eliot. It’s almost enough to make him believe…

And then he adds, “You’re my best friend.”

Best friend, Eliot tries on. Quite a title. It’s enough.

He nods, unable to speak, and just pulls Quentin in for a hug, and presses a secret, harmless little kiss to the top of his head. It’s fine.

“Anyway, thanks. I think I can sleep, now,” Quentin offers, looking up with a grateful smile, and Eliot doesn’t know what he did to deserve it, but he smiles back.

“Me too,” he says finally.

But when he gets to his bed, he lies there with his eyes open, waking mind drifting into dreams of things that never were, and all the things he knows can never be.

* * *

Eliot hasn’t given it much thought (masters in repression, right?), but it’s actually easier to remember the early years of the Mosaic than it is the later ones. Maybe that doesn’t make sense _chronologically_; if Eliot died an old man, and woke up back in his young body, shouldn’t those last few years be closer to him than everything that came before?

But that’s not how the memories work. Maybe because there was this discontinuity: they _didn’t_ remember at first, they were just their twenty-something selves, and then it all came back at once, too quickly for their minds to process effectively. And as it turns out, his twenty-something mind finds it easier to process recollections that could conceivably belong to its set of experiences.

It’s like if the Fairy Queen had brought in a five-year-old to play his and Fen’s lost daughter. It still would’ve been weird, but more digestible than thinking of himself as a parent to a girl less than a decade younger than him.

Hence, Quentin and Eliot having a one-night stand? Eliot pushing him away, Quentin finding the girl of his dreams? Definitely things that could have happened, and easy enough to recall. Teddy’s childhood? Not something Eliot expected to have, perhaps, but not outside the realm of possibility.

Teddy’s adulthood, the grandkids, dying of old age? Way, way beyond his current understanding.

Decades spent in what amounted to a monogamous relationship with the love of his life? Also incomprehensible.

So when Quentin, patron saint and defender of not-obviously not-straight boys everywhere, lies there in bed next to him, calls him out with a scolding that Eliot admits he deserves, and then proceeds to come out himself, Eliot experiences a curious cognitive dissonance.

Quentin prefaces his rant by saying, “I know I wasn’t there, but—”

And one part of Eliot, guilty and aware of that guilt, thinks: yes you were. I did it to you, too, didn’t I?

_I know you, and you’re not—_

_That doesn’t matter._

_Don’t be naïve, it matters._

It was unkind and dismissive, but more than that, it was untrue. Maybe Eliot had made assumptions about Quentin’s sexuality after their first time, or even their second, and deserves to be judged for that, but after the entire quest, with the vague memory of decades together? Somewhere, he had to have known that Quentin hadn’t just been a straight boy lying back and thinking of Fillory the whole time.

But it was and is harder to trust those memories, the ones that belonged to an older man he hasn’t yet become, than it is to remember Quentin after the threesome, chasing after Alice, or Quentin shrugging off any thoughts of Eliot, taking up with Arielle, building an idyllic little family.

Easier, always, to believe in what you know for sure, than in what you want.

Now, however, with Quentin lying there and confessing one of the truths of himself in stark terms, in this life, it feels different. Eliot _knew_, of course he did, but now he undeniably _knows_.

So even though the small matter of Quentin’s sexuality isn’t exactly the revelation it would have been, once upon a time, the fact that he’s telling Eliot, like _he wants him to know_, sets another fantasy buzzing in Eliot’s stupid, apparently now overactive imagination.

Eliot blames Quentin for this. This onslaught of impossible, beautiful things, and the way Quentin’s always made Eliot wish he was a person who could believe.

Because now, some masochistic part of Eliot wonders, what if he’d known this before? What if he hadn’t made the assumptions he made, if he had just done what he wanted, secretly, desperately, from the moment he saw Quentin on the lawn at Brakebills, before Alice Quinn was even a dot on his radar, before Fillory was more than Quentin’s childhood dream? If Eliot had just _gone for it,_ was there a chance that it could have been Quentin-and-Eliot from the first, rather than Quentin-and-Alice? In one of the other timelines, doomed though they were in whatever other ways, could Eliot have had this for real? If he had been braver, if he had dared to ask, instead of assume he never had a shot?

_Why the fuck not?_

There is no point, absolutely no point in thinking this whatsoever, now, he reminds himself.

But it echoes in his brain, like it’s significant, like he’s on the precipice of something he doesn’t understand, but wants to fall into. Wishes he were brave enough.

Quentin says, “Maybe I’m super awkward and intense about it, but I’m like that about everything, so why the fuck not try? Maybe I’ll get shot down, but maybe I’ll get something real and beautiful out of what I feel, for once.”

Real and beautiful.

_It is sort of beautiful._

_It really was._

Eliot’s tired. He’s so tired.

The way Quentin’s looking at him in the soft, hazy light, like his mind is quiet, and his heart is happy, is the way Quentin should always look, and is it really possible that it’s because of Eliot, here and now?

Eliot dozes off, but wakes up a couple of hours later, cold. Quentin’s still lying beside him, asleep, on his back with his head turned to the side, also on top of the covers, but in a way that’s suddenly, viscerally so familiar. Eliot, in the process of unfolding and crawling under the throw blanket at the foot of the bed, is just going to do Quentin the friendly favor of tucking it around him too, but as he feels for the edge of it, he accidentally brushes his stomach.

“El?” Quentin asks, half-asleep.

“Shh, it’s nothing, go back to sleep.”

“’m cold,” Quentin murmurs, the way he always does when he wants warm, blanketing contact, and Eliot’s rested his head on Quentin’s chest before he remembers that that isn’t a thing they do, in this life.

Shit. He’s taking advantage of a sleeping person, and he’s about to pull back when he hears Quentin’s soft, barely conscious “Mm, thanks,” and the evening out of his breathing meaning he’s gone back to sleep.

He listens to Quentin’s heartbeat and lets it lull him off to sleep, imagining, just for a moment…

When he wakes up, he’s clutching a pillow, and the bed is empty.

* * *

Eliot goes back to Fillory.

He tries to immerse himself in preparations for this very important delegation from the outer lands, but it’s pointless to try to extricate thoughts of Quentin from anything Fillory-related. If he’s honest with himself, which he tries not to be too often, it’s futile to try to extricate thoughts of him from anything at all. Quentin is pervasive, and all this talk of Eliot splitting himself in two, taking what he can and wanting no more, brushing up against the life he wants but never truly grasping it… oh, who the fuck is he kidding?

Maybe Eliot can do it, but he’s bleeding. It hurts, and it’s becoming more and more obvious that one day, he’ll bleed out.

What is he supposed to do, though? Give Quentin up entirely? That’s ridiculous. Why can’t Eliot just cauterize himself to this, having part but not the whole, like he’s always done before?

Hadn’t he done it in the past, when Arielle…

The actual worst part of Arielle, Eliot thinks, is that he likes her.

She reminds him of Fen, in that way. Someone he never expected or wanted in his life, but who fills a space all of her own. A space that he’s too callous or selfish to acknowledge, at first, caught up in his perfect performance of polite courtesy, until the day he abruptly sees it for what it is: someone important to him.

Fen, with her history of rebellion, her commitment to her country, her devotion to their fucked-up little family, such as it was, was really pretty remarkable. He remembers realizing it: I like you, I respect you, you’re important to me.

Arielle, a Fillorian girl from an orchard outside the village, who’s seen magic all her life but never truly had it, who probably thought she’d marry her helper and spend her days selling fruit, sees a chance to broaden the horizons of her life, and takes it. Maybe it doesn’t seem like much, to set up house in a cottage not too far from where she grew up, but… she throws herself headlong into a life with a dreamer from another world, who’s driven by a purpose she can’t fully understand, but loves in him, anyway. It’s brave, and beautiful. It’s reckless and sure.

Eliot happens to admire people like that.

She comments on the little garden he’s growing, and he says, more easily than he’s said to anyone in his life, “I grew up on a farm. Then I left. But I guess some memories never die.” He holds up his hands, touched by dirt, going through the old familiar motions without any trouble at all.

She says, “I understand. For me, it was an orchard.” Nothing more, but the next time she visits her own family, returning to the Mosaic with her face a little pinched at their tacit judgment of her choices, she hands him a bag of seeds.

“So you can use what you remember. But to grow something new,” Arielle says.

“You’ll have to help me,” he says. “City boy over there can’t handle a trowel to save his life.”

They both laugh at Quentin, who’s completely oblivious, which makes them laugh harder, and against all expectation, this life, which was never supposed to be real at all, grows.

Then, all of a sudden, like the years were a dream, Arielle’s gone. Eliot’s left with Quentin, in obvious, heartrending pain, which is not a sight he is or has ever been able to withstand. He’s left with his own guilt, for pushing Quentin towards her in the first place, although it’s an unfair thought; Arielle really was an incredible person in her own right, worthy of love, and Quentin made his own choice, he fell into it of his own volition. There’s Teddy, too young to really comprehend the situation, but not too young to break Eliot’s heart with his sad, bewildered eyes, so like his father’s, so startled and horrified that the world, of which he had such high hopes, would betray him in this way. And there’s the Mosaic, the whole reason they’re there, which no one has touched for days.

Eliot lets himself feel it for a moment, in all its complexity. He mourns her. He was awful to her in his own mind, and then he wasn’t, he loved her, and now she’s gone, and he—

Then, he simplifies. He doesn’t have the right. Quentin lost his wife. Teddy lost his mother. If Eliot lets himself sink into sorrow and guilt, then this quest, this life, is a sunken ship.

He thinks about Margo, so far from him, but always so close, and does what has to be done. He thinks of his conversation with Rafe, in the hallway, when this quest was just starting out.

_I am, indeed, a man with not much choice._

Time heals a lot of things, even if it doesn’t fix all of them. All Eliot can do is get his boys through this period of it.

So he cooks. He gets Teddy up every morning, and sits with him on the Mosaic, tries to coax smiles out of him as he works on the pattern of the day. He sits down beside Quentin on the bed, and holds his hand, and offers him food, feeling useless. Sometimes he takes the food, and sometimes he doesn’t, but he doesn’t let go of Eliot’s hand, which is something. Sometimes Eliot brings Teddy with him, lifts him up so he can curl up with his dad, and tells increasingly ridiculous stories about Arielle, their friends, their lives before, until finally, Quentin takes over, if only to correct the fallacies.

Teddy’s smiles come back easier, young as he is. Quentin’s are slower, sadder, but he finds them, or just the semblance of them, for his son, at first. But eventually Quentin starts getting up every day. He volunteers to make breakfast so that Eliot can sleep in, since Eliot makes the other meals and breakfast fare is harder to fuck up. He comes outside and silently hands Eliot tiles and marks down failed designs. He starts suggesting patterns again, himself. He sits down and takes over, shoving Eliot out of the way when he keeps pretending he doesn’t understand Quentin’s directions.

And then, one day, maybe months later, maybe a year or two, Quentin really does smile again, all unthinking, at something Eliot says, and then laughs a little, surprised at his own happiness. Eliot smiles back, satisfied in a job well done. But then, Quentin looks at him with those eyes, grateful and fond, but something else, too, something dangerous, the barest hint of something Eliot hasn’t seen directed at him since…

Oh, fuck. This isn’t what he was trying to do, and it’s going to hurt, Eliot knows, but he is still so weak.

There’s still the unsolvable puzzle, and there’s Teddy to think about, but there’s no Arielle to use as a barrier, and Alice Quinn feels very far away, just now. If Quentin, emerging out of his grief, asks him, right this second, to be his convenient distraction…

He doesn’t. Not just then. It takes him a while.

But when he does, it’s both like their first anniversary, and it isn’t. He says, “Hey,” in that particular tone, which Eliot couldn’t figure out then, but he can, now. He takes Eliot’s hand. Eliot knows it’s coming, this time, heart picking up its pace, sinking and soaring at once, anticipating the biggest, most beautiful mistake he’s ever going to make.

He can’t stop himself.

“Hey,” he says, and kisses Quentin like they’ve never been apart, or maybe like they’ve been apart a lifetime, desperate for it, and doesn’t say no to whatever question Quentin’s trying to ask. Doesn’t let him ask the question, because he knows it’ll destroy his delusions, to hear it out loud.

He’ll take what he can get; he’ll give Quentin what he wants, and no more. Eliot can split himself like this, until the quest is done. It’s enough.

* * *

“The thing is, Margo’s right,” Fen says. She sounds defeated.

Eliot has heard Margo’s side of it. The entire council would have, if he hadn’t had the good sense to usher them all out, none too gently, when Margo and Fen got into a bizarre argument that was ostensibly about Fen trying to absent herself from the upcoming state visit so that she could continue her ambassadorial trips to various parts of Fillory, but had devolved into accusations being flung about the fairies, and Margo’s part in the loss of Fen and Eliot’s child.

Margo feels awful about that. And she really had no other choice. Eliot knows this, Margo knows this, and Fen probably knows this too, and has forgiven her for it.

But instead of apologizing, Margo says, “I did what I had to do, like I always do, because I’m the only one who’s willing to do what has to be done! While you’re off making nice with the locals, I’m here being the wicked witch and making the difficult decisions, and I could really use some fucking support, sometimes.”

“She does take a lot on herself,” Eliot says now. “And she’s so strong that sometimes, it’s easy to forget that she needs support, too. But that doesn’t mean that your work isn’t important, Fen.”

“No, I know that,” Fen says, more confidently than expected, “and Margo does, too. The people need to see both sides of the crown: the one that’ll defend them to the world, and the one that cares about their individual concerns. It’s why we work well together, as High Kings.”

It isn’t such a clean split in reality, of course. Fen, daughter of a knife-maker, has plenty of bloodthirstiness and bravery of her own, to fight wars for her people. And Margo, who won an election on the backs of the talking animals, quite literally, because she was willing to listen to the ostracized, isn’t devoid of genuine, disinterested kindness. But it’s the front they’ve chosen to present now: the king who’s loved, and the king who’s feared.

Pretense takes a toll. Eliot knows that better than anyone.

“What’s the problem, then?”

Fen sighs. “I told her about this latest trip, next week. Yes, there’s official state business, but it’s really because—when we were at the dinner, with the talking animals. I just kept thinking about Fray. I want to visit her again.”

Eliot’s confused. “So? Bambi shouldn’t have a problem with that. Fray and her bear boyfriend did sort of help us out of a difficult spot. Keeping their support is a tactical decision, unless you think she’s worried you’re going to stage a coup by stealing the talking animal vote out from under her?”

“No, Eliot,” she says, looking at the ceiling before facing him again. “She accused me of clinging to a delusion. You, me, Fray, happy family.”

Eliot blinks. He can’t read her face. “But you’re not,” he says, just checking, because Fen nursing some sort of ill-advised crush on him of all people would be a fucking awful eleventh hour plot twist to this drama.

“No, not like that. I know you never loved me like that, and I never loved you like that, either, and we had a daughter who died, and Fray isn’t her. I know that. And I know it wasn’t all good, and it wasn’t _real_, but. I just wanted it to be, so badly, back then.”

“I remember.”

“Margo’s right,” she repeats. “Why should I care about Fray, now? Why do I wake up in the middle of the night still, feeling like I’m mourning for something I never had? There’s no sense to it. The truth is, we never knew our daughter. Fray’s just the face she wears, in my head, that’s all. It’s not real.”

It’s nearing their daughter’s birthday, he realizes. Fuck, he would have made a fucking awful father. He searches for something to say.

“That doesn’t mean that the way you felt wasn’t real, though,” Eliot points out. “Maybe it was based on false pretenses, and maybe—but our feelings were still—oh, fuck.”

“What?”

“Just a inconveniently timed emotional epiphany, that’s all.”

Because that’s what this is, isn’t it? He’s been mourning too, hasn’t he?

He doesn’t know exactly what he says to Fen. He thinks he tells her to go see Fray if it’ll make her feel better, and promises to consider it when she asks him to accompany her.

Left alone, he remembers.

The grief of Quentin’s death was too cavernous; everything else felt like a speck, too insignificant to acknowledge. Like he had told Quentin, it dwarfed his guilt about the Monster; it swallowed his fear that Margo and their other friends would never see him the same way again. He couldn’t care about those things, not until Quentin was back, and Eliot could perceive anything beyond the black hole of his loss.

But mourning Quentin’s death also eclipsed this other mourning: the loss of their life together, on the quest. The loss of something he had felt for one bright second, escaping from the Happy Place: hope, that he could possibly have another chance.

Of course Eliot had run, when Quentin had asked, “Why the fuck not?” Of course Eliot had been afraid to believe. Oh, it had happened, that life, but that it had been _real_, more than the product of circumstance and convenience? Impossible. His mind couldn’t make sense out of those memories, let alone trust them. Quentin had said “Why the fuck not,” and Eliot had heard, “I settled for you once, I could do it again.”

And then he had woken up from the Monster’s possession, and Quentin was dead, and Eliot’s fears had been proven correct. Quentin wouldn’t have chosen him, in his right mind, with all the options in front of him. So what difference did it make, giving up those memories to save Quentin’s life? They hadn’t meant anything anyway; they hadn’t been real.

But what Eliot had realized in the Happy Place was that he had been happy, and he had spent the better part of five decades fearing that it wasn’t real, and that he was going to lose it every day. And then, he had died. He had wasted all that time, worrying, when he _got to live that life_ until the end. However he had gotten it, he hadn’t lost it, and whatever he felt _had_ been real. And it really was beautiful, wasn’t it?

So it had meant something to him, kissing Quentin’s memory and resolving to be brave. Just for one second, like he was someone who could truly believe that this was something he could have.

That was what he had given up, that belief. That was the actual price of his wish.

But Eliot’s still holding on to the shreds of it, somehow, he realizes. Clinging to the delusion, in this life.

Because Quentin says, “I know you,” and he doesn’t, not really, not the ugly snarl of anger and jealousy and resentment at Eliot’s core, but he says it with such assuredness that Eliot’s almost convinced it’s the truth, that someone could know him wholly, and still want to stay.

Quentin touches him, and yes, he’s an easily annoyed grump who shoves him and teases him and then hugs him, tight, which Eliot adores, but other times it’s so _handle-with-care_, so gentle, and no one has ever touched Eliot like that before. He leans into Eliot’s shoulder, and it’s like he can see through all the layers and layers of self-preservation and cowardice, Eliot’s beautiful shell, to the misery within, intuitively aware of all Eliot’s fragile crystalline pieces, mindful of his breakability, but not calling undue attention to it. He brushes Eliot’s hand, like a promise that maybe he’ll give Eliot shit about it sometimes, call him out when needed, but he would still touch it all so tenderly too, mend him with his healer’s hands.

It’s foolish, and impossible. It wasn’t real then, and it certainly isn’t real now.

Quentin loved Arielle, and chose her. Maybe Eliot had pushed him, but he went.

Quentin loves Alice, and chose her, too.

Except they walk in the garden, and Eliot tucks Quentin under his arm, and Quentin leans into it like he needs the contact, and confesses his fears, and then he looks up at him like… oh, like he sees Eliot, and wants him, and Eliot’s traitorous heart rummages in the back of its closet, behind all the hazard signs and experience and baggage, and unearths _hope_ again. Jesus fuck, has he still not managed to throw it out?

(Quentin Coldwater really has left his fucking mark.)

Stop looking at me, he wants to say, angrily, even as he can’t stop himself looking back. Stop looking at me like you’d ever choose me. Haven’t we walked this path before?

Because isn’t that the crux of it, the one impossible thing from which all the others are born? That it would ever be Eliot, for Quentin, when Quentin has a choice?

* * *

But later that night, after Quentin’s run off to brood in his chambers, Eliot walks through the hallway where he found him, past the room they’d used for their ritual to build his body. And he recalls that other night, the secret passageway night, when Quentin talked about his nebulous bad dreams.  


Quentin waking in the middle of the night. _I didn’t know where I was. I didn’t know how I got there_. Quentin having a panic attack in the hallway. _How do I know if I made it back whole? Am I missing something important?_

All this time, Eliot’s been thinking he’s being selfless, keeping the memories from Quentin, only hurting himself. But what if whatever extraction was done on Quentin leaves a trace? What if it’s hurting him, not to know?

Is this selfishness? Is it just Eliot, wanting to spill the secret, not wanting to carry the burden alone? He’s not sure.

_You’d never hurt me_, Quentin had said.

Four words. They sink into Eliot’s mind with unexpected weight, shake a few other things loose.

I am hurting you, Eliot thinks. Quentin trusts him, and he’s lying. Quentin’s confessing his fears to Eliot, and Eliot’s the one responsible for them. He had good reason for doing what he did, of course, and it made sense not to spring it all on Quentin while he was still recovering, but now that he’s doing better…

It’s easy enough. All Eliot has to do is go to Quentin and say, “We remembered the Mosaic life. But the memories of a life fully lived… that was the price to bring your soul back.” Quentin might be pissed, but he’ll understand. It’ll ease his mind, in the end, to know it wasn’t anything worse. Eliot doesn’t have to make him feel guilty about not returning Eliot’s hopeless feelings; he doesn’t have to say anything about that aspect of that life, at all.

(The part of him that speaks in Quentin’s insufferable voice asks, “Why the fuck not? Maybe you’ll get shot down, but maybe…”)

It’s the middle of the night. Eliot could just find Quentin in the morning, but… Quentin had skipped dinner. Maybe this is really bothering him. If Eliot’s going to do this, he should do it now, while he has the nerve, and knows it’s the right thing to do.  


He doesn’t know what he’s going to say. He stands at Quentin’s door and doesn’t know how much he’s going to tell. If he lets himself start talking about that life, will it show on his face? I loved you then, and I love you now? Will Quentin _see_ him? He doesn’t know if he wants it or fears it more.

“Alice,” Quentin says, and Eliot thinks, oh, fuck.

He _is_ being selfish, isn’t he? Quentin has Alice, and Quentin is fine. Maybe he feels like he’s missing something, but it’s nothing that can’t be filled by the promise of a booty call with the brilliant, beautiful love of his life. And Eliot had promised he wouldn’t betray Alice Quinn like that again. What right does he have, what reason to do this?

“It’s actually not that important,” Eliot says, seesawing back to resigned. “In fact, I think it doesn’t really—”

It doesn’t really matter. Or, it matters to Eliot. It doesn’t matter to Quentin, not now, if it ever did.

It’s fine. Eliot will let Quentin get back to his girlfriend, and he’ll go off with his ex-wife to see their not-daughter, and he’ll stop thinking about a life he never lived, and oh, the son he never had. It probably says something awful about Eliot, that he’d basically forgotten his own dead daughter’s existence, but still feels a sharp pang when he thinks about a little boy with Quentin’s eyes and Quentin’s smile, who never existed. Their son. They don’t talk about him, but he lives in the space between them, forever. Fatherhood: once upon a time, an experience they had shared.  


“I can’t even imagine what that feels like.”

Oh. Wait.  


I did hurt you, Eliot thinks again. I took this from you.

Quentin’s words, returning on himself: You lost _your_ child. You don’t even know. It’s like he was never born.

He knew that Quentin didn’t remember Teddy, of course. Intellectually, he understood that. But now, he _knows_.

(Oh, fuck. What has Eliot—)

* * *

  


“Would you ever get married again?” Eliot wonders out loud, on the fifth anniversary of Arielle’s death. They’re standing together, watching Teddy from a distance, giving him privacy at his mother’s grave. Sometimes, now that he’s a little older, he has thoughts he doesn’t share with them, but feels compelled to tell his mother’s memory. It’s awe-inspiring to think that this person, this tiny human being that Eliot has known from the day he entered the world, has thoughts and feelings and ideas of his own. It aches, sweetly, that he doesn’t blurt them all out, incomprehensibly, the way toddlers do, that he’ll have secrets from them, but Eliot’s proud, too. He loves this child, Quentin’s and Arielle’s, more than he ever knew he was capable of loving anyone, like he’s his own.

More than his own, actually, he realizes, with a guilty start. He had another child, back in the world that was, _their_ world. Has another child, maybe. He’s unsure of the semantics.

Caught up in that thought, Eliot misses Quentin’s answer. When he glances up, Quentin is looking at him intently, shuffling his foot a little in the dirt.

“What?”  


Quentin stares at him a moment longer, in disbelief now, and then rolls his eyes. Well, what does he expect, if he’s going to mumble while Eliot’s distracted? “I said,” he says, more strongly, “is that something you’d want?”

Oh. Oh, Jesus fucking Christ. Had Quentin thought he was asking—on the anniversary of his wife’s death, at her fucking grave, how tasteless did he think Eliot was—wait, was _Quentin_ asking—?

“I—I didn’t—”

“Can we go?” Teddy asks, coming up to them.  


“Oh. All done?” Quentin asks.

“Obviously,” Teddy replies, snarky little snot that he is, already bounding ahead like he was waiting on them.

Eliot laughs despite himself. He loves this fucking kid.

“Stay where we can see you!” Quentin calls, but he’s smiling too. It’s a little sad, but of course it is. Today’s the day his wife died. And more than that, he’s confessed to Eliot that he feels kind of hurt that Teddy no longer wants to hold his hand when they go into the village.  


Eliot, who had grown up on rural paths with no one to hold his hand, had said, “It’s fine, Q; he’s growing up, and it’s not like he’s crossing a main street into oncoming traffic,” but he’d taken Quentin’s hand in his own, intertwining their fingers as a consolation prize.

They walk a little ways together, watching Teddy up ahead. “Well?” Quentin asks.

“Well,” Eliot repeats. He holds up his left hand, with the wedding ring he’s never removed. “I’m already kind of married, Q.”

“Oh. Right. Do you—do you think it still counts?” Quentin blurts out.  


Isn’t that the million-dollar question? The one they don't dare to ask anymore? Are they ever going to make it back?

Eliot’s lived without Margo for longer than he ever knew her, now. He tries to imagine her face sometimes, and the details aren’t crisp. He’s still got her voice, though. It’s still what he calls upon, when he feels weak, when he feels like he can’t do what needs to be done.  


“It has to, right?” he asks quietly. “Or what are we even doing here?”

Quentin looks away. This is why they don’t ask the question. Because they’re living a life together, on a quest that it’s becoming more and more apparent they may never complete. But maybe they will. They’ll keep trying.

Built-in expiration date, exact timing to be determined. It’s a holding pattern. It only holds because they don’t talk about it.

“But then. What were you asking me about? Why would I get married again?”

Why did you get married in the first place, Eliot wants to retort, but that’s an incredibly horrible thing to say to someone on the anniversary of their spouse’s death.

Anyway, he really wasn’t angling for a perfunctory proposal of marriage. He was just thinking about Teddy, missing his mother, and as much as Eliot doesn’t personally love the idea, he would never want Teddy to want for anything. If Quentin found someone, fell in love again, and she loved Teddy, he would…

“I don’t know. No one could ever replace Arielle. But maybe Teddy needs a mother figure.”

“That’s startlingly heteronormative of you,” Quentin remarks, in a way that forebodes some kind of fight they’ll teeter on the edge of, but bite back into a few passive-aggressive exchanges, on account of the fact they have a nine-year-old around them at all times.

“That’s not what I—I was thinking about Fray, that’s all.”

As expected, that diffuses much of Quentin’s anger. “Your daughter,” he says. “I–I forgot, El, I’m so sorry—”

“It doesn’t matter,” Eliot says. “Barely knew her, hated us, and all that. I just meant that she grew up not knowing her parents, with the Fairy Queen, and it fucked her up, didn’t it? And the worst part is, Fen would’ve been an _amazing_ mother, if she’d had the chance. And Arielle was, too, for as long as she—it’s not that you’re not enough, Q—but I just feel bad that Teddy’s missing out on having that, both, you know?”

“What about you?” Quentin asks, and Eliot can’t figure out if he means with respect to Fray, or Teddy. Either way…  


“Come on,” he says with a laugh, picking the interpretation that hurts less. “Fen would’ve been brilliant, but don’t try to tell me I would’ve made a great father. Or _mother figure_, for that matter.”

They walk in silence for a while.

“I don’t have to tell you that I think you _would’ve_ been a good father, El,” Quentin says finally, as they reach the cottage. Teddy’s already inside. “I know it. You already are.”

* * *

  


Fen and Fray spend the morning taking a walk around town. Eliot remembers sending them to Times Square, ages ago, just to get them out of the way, when he was the High King in exile on a quest, and doesn’t even know what to think about that. The twists and turns of existence.

But then, someone spies Fen in her watered down finery, with the retinue of guards, and finds some issue to bring up with the High King, so Fray returns alone. Eliot’s sitting at the bar, pointedly not drinking Fillorian swill.

She looks at him. “I’m not working tonight, so I’m not making you a drink,” she says.  


“I wouldn’t drink it anyway,” Eliot replies. “Not because it’s dreadful, although it is. I’m supposed to be treating my body like a temple, after recent events,” he adds.

“Fen said everyone thought you were dead, for a while,” Fray says. She has a weirdly familiar way of making statements sound like questions.

“Yeah. I was possessed, by a fairly evil monster, who used my body to do some pretty horrible things.”

Fray shrugs. “No one told me. I thought you were just gone. Back to your world. Back to your real life. Once you weren’t king anymore, why would you stay?”

Instead of going up the stairs to the rooms above the tavern, where she lives, she comes to sit beside him, however.

“Fen’s worried about you,” she announces.

“That's Fen,” Eliot says.

“She worries about me, too,” Fray says, bemused. “Still. It’s odd.”

“I mean, she thought you were her long-lost daughter, for a while. That’s hard to shake.”

“It was a lie, though,” Fray points out. “And a very cruel one, at that. I betrayed you both.“

“Bygones,” Eliot says. “You helped us, too.” He manages a smile for her.

She squints at him. “Are you sad you’re not king anymore?”

“No.”

“But you _are_ sad.” Before he can figure out what to say to that, she goes on, “Isn’t it a tradition on your world, that if you’re feeling something unpleasant, you share it with the person who pours your drinks?”

Where had she picked that up, he wonders, but says, “Thought you weren’t making me a drink.”  


“I’m not,” she says, but doesn’t leave, just stares at him.

Fray, Eliot thinks, is probably the person in his life who’s least equipped to be comforting, understanding, or supportive in any way. Maybe that’s why he tells her the whole story.

“I know it wasn’t _real_,” Eliot says. “He said he did, but he wouldn’t really have wanted—he _didn’t_ want me, in the end. But I think that when I broke out of the Monster’s possession, for a second I really thought I had it wrong. I really thought that if I had taken my chance that day, when we remembered and he asked, or if I had taken it before that, instead of pushing him at Arielle, then maybe he would have—but no. No. He would have been settling. But I just still want to believe, so badly—”

“That he’d choose you,” Fray finishes, when Eliot can’t.

He shakes his head, even though she’s cut right to the core of it, merciless. “It’s not real. I know it’s not. But sometimes I feel like it is, even now, and it _hurts_. That’s why I’ve been how I’ve been. Why I’ve been… mourning.” He shouldn’t be mourning the loss of a dream, not when he’s got Quentin back, and he knows what it was like to mourn _him_. It’s selfish. Greedy. Stupid.

“How do you know?”

“How do I know what?”

“You were afraid it wasn’t real, in the past, you’ve said. You thought you were going to lose it, every day. But how do you _know_ it wasn’t real? How do you know it isn’t, now?”

“Look at the facts. We’re back in our own timeline, and Quentin’s got his happily ever after with Alice going on as we speak. I _did _lose it. I’m just seeing things I want to see.”

Fray rolls her eyes. “He didn’t know you were an option, though, did he? And you still haven’t told him, now.”

Well, Eliot had tried, hadn’t he? “Why the fuck would I tell him all this now, when he’s happy with someone else?”

“Because you want to know what he’ll say? Because it’s obviously killing you, not knowing?”

“So I should just put that on him? Why? He’d feel guilty as fuck. Anyway, he doesn’t _remember_, so isn’t it kind of manipulative? ‘Oh, by the way, I know what you look like when you…’” He trails off. She’s not his daughter, not really, and she’s dating a bear, but it still feels pretty inappropriate talking about his own sex life with her.

“Maybe he’d feel guilty, if he didn’t feel that way about you. But he’s your friend. He’d understand that that’s not what you were trying to do. And telling him isn’t the same as holding a knife to his throat.” She sighs, like he’s the stupidest person alive. “Eliot. I didn’t know my parents. The Queen, she was the closest thing to a mother I had. I was honored to serve her, by deceiving you and Fen. I lied. I spied. I betrayed you.”

“Yes,” Eliot agrees, bewildered by the sudden change of topic.

“But. I liked you, too. Fen was so… she _loved_ me, sight unseen, despite everything I said and did. And you—you tried to do right by me, even though it must have been very difficult for you. You were both _good_.”

“Fray,” he starts.

“What I’m saying is, I thought about confessing the truth. Before.”

“Why? Or, why didn’t you?”

“You were kind to me,” she says simply. “I liked you. So I thought, maybe you deserved the truth. But then I thought, they’re only kind to you because they think you’re their daughter. It’s not _real_. If they knew, they would never—and I was afraid. Of losing what I had. Because I’d never had that much before.”

“Then why tell us at all, when you did?”  


“Because you thought you were making a choice,” she says. “You thought you had a choice between your kingdom, and your daughter, and you made it. But you didn’t know the truth. It _wasn’t a real choice_.”

Oh.

“Eliot. You want him to choose you. But you’re not giving him a choice.”

“I—”  


Eliot pushed Quentin toward Arielle, and counted himself right when he fell for her. Eliot turned Quentin down post-Mosaic, and considered it a kindness when Quentin took up with Alice later anyway. And now, Eliot’s taken from Quentin the memories of a life they shared, when they were happy, the fact that Quentin went through it and, if only for a minute, wanted that _again_…

It’s always been a foregone conclusion, for him. That Quentin would never choose him. But maybe that’s because it’s easier, always, to believe in what you know, than hope for the impossible things you want.  


But Eliot’s greedy and grasping, too. He wants, secretly, not to be convenient. Not to just be good _enough_, the default pick. He wants, desperately, to be brave: to offer himself up explicitly, and to say, you can have me, _if you choose me, this time. _

Because what if that first night on the Mosaic, Quentin surprising him with the kiss out of nowhere, hadn’t been Quentin just shrugging and saying, “You’re here, and I’m here”? What if it had been him working up his blazing courage to say, “I like you, I want you, do you—?”

What if “why the fuck not?” wasn’t a throwaway comment, but instead, Quentin seeing something he wanted, something real and beautiful, and just going for it like the person he is?

“We’re still here,” Eliot says finally. “Maybe we’re not your parents, and you’re not our daughter, but you still have us.”

“I know,” Fray says. “That’s why I’m telling you. I was afraid it wasn’t real, but it never could have been real, not so long as I didn’t tell you the truth, and face up to it myself.”

Oh, Eliot’s still afraid. He’s still running.

He’s been afraid of hurting Quentin, that’s true, and he’s vacillated about whether telling him or lying to him would hurt him more. But to some extent, he’s also been protecting himself. He thinks about the way Quentin looks at him and just shares things: how he’s feeling, what he’s afraid of, the things he thinks of as the worst aspects of himself. Eliot knows his own ugliness, though, and fears it. His selfishness, his unkindness. His anger and jealousy. Because if he tells Quentin the entire truth, the truth of himself… if Quentin sees that, would he really want…

Would Quentin hate him, for taking away his recollection of his wife, and his son? Would he resent him for the guilt of not returning Eliot’s feelings? And anyway, now that Quentin doesn’t have the memories of them making their life together work, and Alice Quinn is in the picture, what chance does Eliot have, anyway? Would Eliot lose what he already has?

Eliot is still so afraid that it isn’t real.

But Quentin fucking Coldwater really has left his fucking mark. Because that’s what it is, the precipice he's been teetering on the edge of. Eliot’s so afraid that it’s not real, but what has he been doing all this time, besides hoping against hope that it is?  


* * *

  


When they get back to the castle, Eliot’s still working up the courage, unsure if he ever will. History is not on his side, here. But then, a wild Quentin appears, and whisks him away for a private conversation.

As far as signs go, that one is pretty clear. It’s now or never, and Eliot’s tried never.

“I missed you,” Quentin says, and he’s tilting his face up like he wants to be kissed hello, and good lord, what the fucking fuck, he’s supposed to give _this_ up? If Quentin hates him for this, if he loses him…

But Eliot doesn’t have him, does he? He doesn’t have the right to lean in and take the kiss. He did give it up, or at least he gave up his chance at it, when he didn’t believe it could be real. When he ran from it, every time.

Maybe it wasn’t real. But it certainly never can be, not if Eliot doesn’t—  


“It’s good you’re here. I have to tell you something, actually.”  


“Me too. I mean, I want to ask you something. But then I want to tell you something, too. You want to go first?”

“Not really,” Eliot admits. “But I should. I’ve been putting it off for too long, because I didn’t know how to tell you. And because I’m a selfish, cowardly person.” Maybe that’s an oversimplification, but he thinks it covers all the bases. Time to get to the point. “Listen. You know how no one knows how your spirit made it back to life? And you’ve been worrying that you’re missing something, that you came back wrong, somehow?”  


So much for his big dramatic confession. As it turns out, Quentin’s basically figured it out, and immediately doubted himself out of the right conclusion. Because of course he has. He looks at Eliot with a gaze that’s surprised, but completely unsuspecting. Trusting.  


“So, we did remember that life,” Eliot says, because hey, maybe the facts are the place to start.

“What?” Quentin asks, and then immediately starts to argue with him. Fuck his life. “When? I just asked—Margo has the same memory I do, the three of us sitting in the Cottage and talking about how strange it was that we died in this alternate life that never happened.”

“Margo doesn’t know.” He can see the question forming in Quentin’s mind, and heads it off at the pass. “But that’s not really relevant right now.”

“What?” Quentin repeats. He laughs a little. “El, what are you talking about?”

Okay. Eliot starts again. Different fact. “Do you remember when you met the Winter’s Doe? You and Penny each made a wish, after everything happened, with the Beast, and Alice. Yours took you back to Earth.”

Quentin blinks. “I—I never told you about that.”

“That’s the thing.” Eliot forces the confession out slowly, emphatically. Unmistakably. “Yes, you did.”  


They had been sitting on the Mosaic, still a habit on warm nights, once Teddy had gone to bed. Eliot doesn’t remember exactly how the topic came up, but he thinks someone in the village had been telling Teddy about questing creatures, and he’d asked them questions, swinging between their hands all the way home.

“She’s the one who sent me to Earth, after. Well, after Alice.”

They’ve been here for almost a decade. Quentin was married for almost half of that time. He and Eliot have been—doing whatever they’re doing—for just over a year, not counting the first time, before Arielle. And taking Alice’s name still brings a sad, serious shadow to Quentin’s face.

Maybe that’s unfair. Eliot doesn’t know what his own face does, when he has to talk about Margo, but it’s probably nothing good.

“I went looking for her too,” he says, not dwelling on the circumstances, on how Margo’s still out there, somewhere, with the fairies pulling her strings, “but you know I met her brother instead. The _Great Cock_.”

“Bet you loved that,” Quentin says, obviously making a half-hearted effort at levity.

“Well, you know me,” Eliot replies, in the same tone, before he grows serious again. “He’s the one who set us on this quest. And now, we’re—fuck, Q, what the fuck are we…”

“Fuck. Fuck. I don’t know. I don’t know if I even want—we have Teddy, to think about, don’t we? We have a—but we had a life, back then, too, and maybe it’s still waiting for us. Maybe they are, our friends, and how can we abandon them, instead?”

That’s the thing, isn’t it? Built-in expiration date. Whether they want it or not, they could solve this puzzle tomorrow. The only way to stop it would be to stop trying, and it’s not in Quentin’s make-up to do _that_.

So Eliot does what he does best. He swallows his own hurt, and distracts Quentin instead.

“The Great Cock. Interesting character. He called you my ‘brother of the heart, with the foppy hair.’ Or was it _floppy_ hair?” Eliot wonders, teasing a hand through said hair, which is almost too long now to be called floppy.

“Yeah?” Quentin asks. “Not your brother, exactly, though, am I?” He, too, seems to be shaking off his dark mood. And he’s doing that criminal thing with his face—little chin tilt, the slightest of smiles—that means he wants to be kissed.

“No, not exactly,” Eliot agrees, giving in to the temptation to stroke Quentin’s cheekbone with his thumb, tangle his fingers in the soft fine hairs at the base of his skull, cup his neck.

Giving in to the temptation to draw him in, to kiss him, to close his eyes and imagine, just for tonight, that this is really, truly his.

Alice Quinn’s not here. Eliot is. The puzzle remains unsolved for another day. Eliot’s never sure of it in the morning, but at night, he knows: today was another day in this life that’s just theirs. He’ll wake up to a nameless fear he can never truly shake, and to the guilt of abandoning Margo and the quest, but he can fall asleep to Quentin’s heartbeat, for at least one more night.

Now, in the present, there’s a dawning light in Quentin’s eyes. Doubt. “My—I’m missing memories. I told you, but I don’t remember?”

“You each got a wish. But there was supposed to be a third, which she withheld, for… reasons of her own. Which she felt bad about, once you were both dead.”  


“What are you saying, Eliot?”

“I’m saying, I made a wish. To bring you back.”

“No,” Quentin says. “Wishes can’t bring back the dead. She told me—”

“She couldn’t bring back Alice, yeah. But Q, there was a loophole—”

“I told you that, too?” Quentin interrupts. He sounds disbelieving, before, all of a sudden, he sighs. “Of course. One of the worst moments of my life, and of course I just told you, because it was you.”

Eliot can’t quite read his tone. He’s upset, but there’s also something else that’s harder to place. “No,” he answers, uncertain of his footing, or what he’s stepped on. “No, the White Lady did. But listen. We didn’t remember right away. But then, I don’t know how, it came back to us, in a rush, that whole life.”

“That whole life,” Quentin repeats. “The one where I _grew old_, and _got married_, and _had a son_?”

It can’t be. It’s impossible. But what if… “You—you remember that?” Eliot asks, and he doesn’t recognize his own voice, so full of hope as it is.

Quentin narrows his eyes at him. “No. I remember telling my dad. The last time I talked to him, before he died. I’ve been trying to figure out what it meant.”

“Oh. Oh. I didn’t realize you had talked about it, with anyone.”

“Apparently, I did,” Quentin says, and oh, that’s the slow start of his anger, like dark clouds before the storm. No nine-year-olds here, to rein it in.

“It was the only way,” Eliot hurries to explain. “She found me, she had a way to bring you back. This was the price, your memories of that life. And I thought, you and I were the only ones who knew, and we weren’t supposed to remember, anyway. I thought it wouldn’t _matter_, but then it—but what was I supposed to do? I did it. Of course I did it.”

“You just made the decision for me. Unilaterally,” Quentin says, very evenly. “I guess I shouldn’t be surprised. It’s not the first time.”

“What?” Eliot asks, completely thrown.

“You didn’t tell me,” Quentin says, and he sounds hurt now. Fuck. “You didn’t _trust_ me.”  


Okay, Eliot is like genetically engineered to feel guilty when Quentin pulls out that tone, but still, this is unfair. “How could I fucking tell you? You were fucking dead! We couldn’t have a discussion about it!”

“I’m alive now,” Quentin points out. “I have been, for like, a while.”

“Well done, me,” Eliot snipes back, before it occurs to him that this is probably not the best approach to take when confessing to the man you’re in love with that you lied to him about saving his life because… you’re in love with him.

The fact that Quentin doesn’t even roll his eyes or make a face at that is probably the surest sign that this is going really, really awry. “You didn’t tell me, till now. I told _you_. That I was afraid, that I felt wrong, that—and you just brushed me off, you made me think that it was just my anxiety, just in my head. I thought it was a comfort, but—”

Right. That’s probably not a good thing, especially for someone with Quentin’s mental health history. A history that he’s confided in Eliot, because he trusts him. “I didn’t mean to gaslight you, Q, I’m sorry, I’m sorry, I really didn’t realize you’d feel it like that, I just thought you’d be better off not dwelling on it—”

“_You_ thought. _You_ decided. I thought we’ve been through this before, but apparently—”

“Okay, what are you talking about?”

“Blackspire!” Quentin spits, and Eliot goes cold. “I made a decision, and you just overrode it. You just shot the Monster, grand fucking plan, Eliot, and we saw how well it worked out for everyone, didn’t we? Especially me. _Well done, you_.”

Oh. Well. They’ve talked about the Monster, haven’t they? Eliot’s talked around how guilty he feels, for the things his body was used to do, to all his friends, especially Quentin, when he was possessed. Quentin’s comforted him, tried to absolve him. He’s never _blamed_ him. Except apparently he has. Okay. That’s fair. That’s fine.  


He thinks he sees Quentin’s righteous anger falter a little at whatever he’s reading in Eliot’s face, but it’s too late. Eliot’s own anger is rising up to cover the exquisite hurt, and it’s a lot uglier than Quentin’s, which is why he never allows himself to...  


It’s too late. It’s always way too easy to slip, with Quentin.

“Oh, you mean when you wanted to bury yourself alive for eternity? _That_ decision? Or maybe you’re mad that I invalidated your choice to finally fucking kill yourself in the Mirror Realm, and tell yourself you were doing something brave, is that it? And you’re so _surprised_ that I don’t always trust you to save your own life?”

He regrets it the moment it leaves his mouth, naturally, but it can’t be unsaid. Fuck. Quentin rears back like Eliot has actually hit him. “Q, I’m sorry, shit, I didn’t—”

It’s cruel, and hateful, and ugly, and worst of all, in some horrible twisted way, _true_. Eliot has been furious at Quentin for leaving him, ever since the moment he woke up in the hospital to find Margo by his side, jaw set, eyes filled with tears. He _knows_ it’s unfair and irrational, that Quentin was just being Quentin, doing what he thought was the right thing no matter the cost—that Quentin’s not at fault for his brain breaking sometimes, and obscuring his own value in favor of the big damn hero sacrifice play...

Eliot’s buried it deep, under his sorrow, when Quentin was gone, and under his joy, now that Quentin’s back. But this is anger that comes from a place of longstanding, primal fear, and Eliot is so, so afraid of losing him.  


“You do not get to use that against me,” Quentin says. He sounds stunned. “I told you that I was afraid that I had—I told you, because I trust you, more than anyone, because I—and you throw it in my face? Fuck, Eliot, I tell you everything, _everything_, and I thought you—but you were lying to me? How can you—how _can_ you, when I—” His cracked-open, horrified expression hardens in a way it never should, oh fuck, what has Eliot _done_?

“Quentin, I’m _sorry_. You were dead, you were gone, and I couldn’t—” He hardly knows what he’s saying, but he reaches out and grabs Quentin’s shoulders, tries to pull him in. Quentin shoves at his chest, but not very hard, so they end up in a weird, agonized half-embrace, just breathing for a few seconds, not saying anything.

“Please,” Eliot begs, “let me explain. I wanted to tell you—”

What is he supposed to say now? “I love you”? It’s woefully inadequate. This should have been fairly straightforward, and it’s gotten way, way out of control.

“Yeah. Okay. Okay. But not now.” Quentin looks up at him. The anger’s gone. He looks like he did when he thought he was going to be expelled from Brakebills, like he thinks he’s about to lose something he doesn’t know how to live without. He looks like Teddy, shocked that the world could hurt him in this way. That Eliot did. “I’ll listen, I will, I just can’t, right now. The way I’ve been feeling—it’s too much—I have to think, I can’t be here,” he says, but makes no effort to move away.

“Okay. Okay, Q. Let’s just get you back to your room.”

They make their way, in silence, through the halls. As they do, they walk past—of all things—the tapestry that conceals the secret passageway to the castle’s opposite wing. It would be a faster path to where Quentin and Julia’s rooms are located.

They don’t look at each other. They take the long way around.

Eliot keeps walking after he leaves Quentin at his door, with the halting promise to talk more the next day. He doesn’t think about anything. He just wanders his way out of the castle, into the forest, along the old, familiar trails lit up by the moonlight. He doesn’t meet anyone, or say anything. He’s left as alone as he wanted to be, once upon a time.

When he sees the sun rising, though, he knows what he has to do.

“What the fucking fuck could you possibly need at the crack of dawn, you—”

She sees his face and stops talking.

“So. Either I fucked up, or I _am_ fucked up. Or very possibly both. You still up for it?”

“That depends. Do you want to cry, or do you want to fix it?”  


Eliot doesn’t know. He really doesn’t. They both feel like impossible things.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> (If it's not clear, I love Eliot. Writing this was painful.)
> 
> Anyway, if that wasn't long enough, here are some lengthy explanations of my madness:
> 
> Like Eliot, I am no expert on Greek mythology, and don’t fully understand the distinction among the five rivers. Acheron is the “River of Woe,” and supposedly the newly dead were ferried across it by Charon (for the price of a coin) to enter Hades. Lethe represents forgetfulness, or oblivion, and “shades of the dead” were required to drink its waters in order to forget their earthly life, so that they could be reincarnated.
> 
> As for twists on canon… I was rewatching “The Flying Forest,” and the White Lady’s characterization is really sort of interesting. She’s understandably irritated that Quentin shoots her, and sounds almost jealous of his freedom as a magician. When he and Penny bicker about the “third wish,” she basically snaps that they get two, or nothing. But then, she tells Quentin she can’t go back to sleep until she grants his wish, suggesting that she’s bound by rules of some kind. And then she’s generally more sympathetic to his plight than you’d expect. So I wanted to explore her motivations.
> 
> Also, I figured that if her brother (the Great Cock haha) can set Eliot on a quest that starts in New Jersey, and another one of the questing creatures gives the Chatwins the button that lets them cross realms, and she herself sends Q to earth, it’s reasonable that questing creature magic isn’t limited to Fillory. The Great Cock also seems to ship Q/El, so it’s not out of the question that she might want to help them too, in her own way.
> 
> I don’t think it’s ever actually explained why, when Julia and Q go to the Underworld, taking Alice’s shade back with them means that Julia “loses her shot” at bringing her own. Why could they only take one shade? Hence, my overcomplicated take on the price.
> 
> Thank you for reading, and for all the support thus far <3 Stay tuned for chapter 3, tentatively subtitled “Wtf was I thinking, introducing all these threads that I now have to pull together?”


	3. universe next door

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which: people try to talk about their feelings and eventually succeed; there is a stupid misunderstanding, an epiphany, and a big romantic scene; and this fairytale finally gets a happy ending (and an even happier beginning).

_Who gets that kind of proof of concept? / Who gets proof of concept like that?_

“So, don’t leave me in suspense, Q. I saw Fen was back, but there was a conspicuous lack of Eliot at the breakfast table. And you. How’d it go?”

Quentin doesn’t turn his head from where he’s lying on the bed and staring at the ceiling. He can hear Julia’s smile in her voice, all expectation and excitement, curiosity that’s ready to tip over into teasing at any moment.

“I didn’t tell him,” he says.

“What?” she asks, taking a few more steps into the room. “I wasn’t even sure I should bother knocking this morning, because I was so sure you’d still be getting—” She cuts herself off when he finally looks at her. “What happened? Did you not see him?”

“No, I did. I just… didn’t tell him. He told me.”

“He told you what?”

“I was right. It was the quest. The Mosaic. We remembered that whole life. Or at least, he does, and I did, before—”

Quentin stops. He doesn’t even know how to explain what has happened to him. He probably needs to go talk with Eliot, get the whole story, all the details.

It’s morning now, he supposes. He’ll get out of bed and go figure it all out soon.

Julia sits down on the edge of the bed. “Wow,” she says. “And it just never came up, since you’ve been back? What did he say when he realized you don’t remember?”

There’s a long, damning silence. Quentin tries to break it. He really does. “Julia. He’s the one who—”

He doesn’t know why this is bothering him so much, why he feels like he can’t even look at it straight. He thinks maybe he’s overreacting? But it feels cataclysmic. Like if he figures out all the pieces of the puzzle that have been eluding him till now, he’ll lose what he’s managed to put together in their absence. The shape of this new life he’s been constructing for himself, with Eliot as such an integral component, all the things he’s realized he wants…

It’s unstable. Is it as hollow as the memory of telling his dad about the quest feels, with nothing real behind it?

It can’t be, right?

“Oh. That _motherfucker_. He was talking to me about—he figured it out!” She gets up suddenly, pacing the room, one step, two steps, then turns to Quentin. “I can’t believe he didn’t—what did he say, exactly?”

A lot of things, which Quentin isn’t going to repeat, actually. Some of them are on an endless loop inside his stupid brain, but they can just live there alongside everything else, okay? He doesn’t have to speak them aloud. “He said, he made a wish,” he explains dully.

That arrests Julia in her agitated pacing. “What?” she asks. “That’s not… that doesn’t make sense.”

“Yeah, I know. Wishes can’t bring back the dead. It’s practically the letter of the lore.”

“No, that’s not what I mean. Wait here a minute. I have to—” And she runs out the way she came.

All right. Quentin doesn’t move.

Julia returns almost immediately, holding a stack of books. “Sorry, I realized last night, I left these in my room here when we were researching how to bring you back.” She sits down beside him, holding out one of the books. Quentin forces himself into some sort of upright position, back against the headboard, so he can look over her shoulder.

“Mythology texts,” he says, still uninterested.

Julia is in some hyper-focused state of revelation, the way she always gets when she’s on the verge of unraveling a complex problem, and doesn’t seem to notice his lack of engagement. “Eliot and I were working together on how to get your soul back. We had the body spell well in hand, but we were worried that… what if we just built a body, and never figured out how to get you into it?”

“Right,” Quentin says. That would be worrisome, wouldn’t it?

“So we talked about going to the Underworld, the way you and I did, but a shade isn’t the same as a complete soul, and he asked me, did I think _memories_ were part of a soul, or something extrinsic to it. And then, he was talking about price. The price of the magic, could we just pay it?”

“Well, he did, apparently. The memories were the price.”

“Your memories of that whole life,” Julia says slowly. “Something about that is so…” Her fingertips are idly tracing the spine of the book in front of her, like she’s itching to dive into another research spiral, but she gives herself a little shake and laughs ruefully. “I’m sorry, Q. I know it doesn’t matter. It was bothering me, that’s all. That I couldn’t manage this for you. I was working with him all day and reading all night and I felt like I was failing, and it turns out that he just... so I thought if I could just figure it out… but I guess I don’t have to. What matters is that you’re back. So? How did Eliot do it? How do _wishes_ figure into it?”

“I—I don’t know.” He’s caught off guard by how much she’s still apparently taking it to heart, her inability to finish what she started. Julia’s brought it up to him, of course, the spell to bring him back, and how she had come up with the idea, and she and Alice did the brunt of the research, helped by the others in the later stages.

If they were fighting again, like they had his first year at Brakebills, he might have said that she just couldn’t bear the idea that Eliot, or anyone, had solved a problem that she couldn’t solve. That she wasn’t the smartest or most successful person in the room.

But that’s an unfair thought. He remembers her apologizing for failing _as his best friend_. And then Julia looks at him again, really looks at him, not just at the puzzle he’s brought to her attention, and she’s not a hedge or a scholar or a goddess or any of it, just his oldest friend in the world. “Q,” she says, and pushes the books aside. “What happened?”

It occurs to Quentin how lucky he is to have her.

“I lost it,” Quentin admits, tipping his head up at the ceiling again like it has the answers. “I don’t know, Julia, I think he was trying to tell me what he did, but I was just so shocked, and then all of a sudden we were fighting, and I don’t even know what the fuck we were fighting about. We never fight, not really.” Except, maybe they do. They could have spent fifty fucking years fighting in Fillory past, for all Quentin knows, and _Eliot’s_ certainly not telling.

Well, that’s not fair either, is it? Eliot was trying to tell him. Trying and failing for weeks and weeks, Quentin thinks nastily.

“He’s such an asshole!” he exclaims suddenly. But then, he follows it up almost immediately with, “I was an asshole. I blamed him for everything with the Monster, when I _know_ it’s not his fault, and that he’d take it to heart—but he blamed me for—”

“What?” Julia asks, and Quentin finally meets her eyes again. There’s concern and understanding, no trace of judgment, but…

_I don’t always trust you to save your own life_.

The thing is, it’s not even an unreasonable sentiment. Growing up depressed and possibly, some of the time, suicidal, had given Quentin plenty of exposure to how hard it is, sometimes, for other people to care about someone depressed and possibly suicidal. How much has he leaned on Julia over the years? She’s still here now, but he knows he’d been too much for her, before magic changed everything; they’d been drifting apart long before Brakebills fell down between them, and then magic pulled them back together. And before he died, how many times, how miserable and difficult had Quentin made things for his dad? His mom obviously couldn’t carry his weight at all. He’d put it on Eliot almost as soon as they met, and Eliot had just taken it, told him he wasn’t alone, and it had meant everything.

It’s not crazy that Eliot might feel upset or overwhelmed about how Quentin is sometimes, especially since Quentin had, actually, died.

But it’s the way he had said it: viciously, like Quentin’s incapacity and weakness and uselessness had forced his hand. For all his teasing and condescension and bite, Eliot’s never made Quentin feel like that, not about anything that matters, not since the day they met. Like dead weight he has to carry, or rescue from the bottom of the ocean, an obligation he resents.

_You’re not useless; it’s not a burden_. Eliot had said that too, soft and warm and kind, words Quentin had wanted to curl up in, like a blanket, long before he had realized what that feeling meant. But then, Eliot had denied knowing anything about Quentin’s resurrection in practically the same breath, and he’d been lying about that, hadn’t he?

Hollow. Unstable.

“It doesn’t matter. That’s not the worst part,” Quentin says, even though it sets his heart to sinking. “The worst part is that, it’s like I told you, ever since I got back, I’ve felt lost. Like, I was with Alice, and that was all I wanted for so long, but suddenly, I had it and I didn’t want it anymore. You and I could have gone to _magic school_ together, the way we were supposed to, like we always dreamed about, and…”

“You didn’t want it anymore,” Julia supplies.

“And then Fillory… I was crowned one of the kings of Fillory, and it feels like it never happened, because of all the shit that happened between then and now. Fillory was always my escape, growing up, but this,” he gestures around the room, high ceilings, ornate furniture, everything you’d expect from a castle, “even now that things are settled, and I could really have it, it doesn’t feel like my place either. Except… except when I’m with him.”

“Oh, Q.” She wraps her arms around him, twisting her whole torso into an awkward hug, sitting as she still is on the side of the bed. “Want me to research battle curses? Kady could help cast.”

Quentin can feel his eyes burning, and he hates this about himself, the crying. He doesn’t want to hurt Eliot. Knowing that he did, even a little, with his words, hurts him exponentially worse in return. He says, into Julia’s shoulder, “I didn’t feel like I fit anywhere, except with Eliot. But talking with him, I could go back to Brakebills, at least part time, and it was okay. I could love Fillory again, at least pieces of it, when _he_ told me about it. So I thought, maybe I’m in a mire, in a maze, maybe I’m missing some vital pieces, but he and I, if we’re lost, at least we’re together. And I thought I was finding my way out of it, with him. I really thought, the way I feel, maybe he—but fuck, Julia, all this time I’ve been in the mire, and it turns out he’s the one who put me there. So what does that even mean?”

He doesn’t want to doubt the way he feels about Eliot. Eliot loving Quentin back has never been a guarantee, however much Quentin has been hoping, but Quentin loving Eliot has felt like the cardinal truth of his existence, ever since he opened his eyes and found a name for the feeling that’s always been there. He knows it like his own name; it’s the ground beneath his feet.

Julia sighs, and sits back.

“Q, the way you feel about him, or if this changes it, I can’t tell you that. And it’s fucked up that what he did messed with your mind, so you feel like you can’t trust your own emotions. But I don’t know if he’s the only one who put you in the mire. Because it doesn’t sound like everything you’ve been feeling is just because you’re missing some memories of another life. Maybe it’s because you came back to _this_ life when you didn’t expect to. And if that’s the case, if the mire is just life, we’re all responsible. We didn’t ask you what you wanted. We just wanted you back, Eliot included. I saw him, and I’m sure of that much, that the motive wasn’t anything more sinister than him missing you. Maybe that makes us selfish.”

Quentin thinks about what she’s saying, and all the words she’s not saying.

“I’m not unhappy to be alive, Jules,” he says finally. “I don’t want you to think… I know sometimes I’ve given you reason to worry. And I’m sorry. I wish I wasn’t like this.”

She hugs him again, tightly. “Don’t be sorry. You’re my best friend. I love you.”

“I’m glad you did what you did. I’ve been glad to have a second chance. But he’s been such a big part of that, you know? And even if you’re right, even if he just did it because he wanted me back, why would he lie to me? Why wouldn’t he just tell me?”

That’s the crux of it. Quentin’s put so much on to Eliot, trusted him with everything he is, all the messy parts and hateful parts and broken parts. And he’s believed in the equality, the balance of it, that he gives Eliot the same kind of safe space, the same respite. That they’re both building a bridge toward one another, meeting in the middle. But if Eliot couldn’t even trust him with this, what is Quentin besides a useless burden to bear, building half of a bridge to nowhere?

Julia pulls back once again to look at him. Her eyes are kind, but her voice is matter-of-fact. “You know there’s only one person who can answer that,” she says.

“Yeah,” he agrees.

“Want me to come and glare disconcertingly at him while you talk? For moral support?”

“No, I think I’ve got to do it alone. I’ll come find you if I change my mind about the cursing thing, though.”

“Don’t worry, I got you, Q.”

* * *

“So, to recap. You’re a fucking moron.” Margo, berating someone.

“I know.” That’s Eliot, not putting up a fight.

Quentin freezes. He shouldn’t eavesdrop, and is about to back away, but then Margo says loudly, “I can’t believe you didn’t tell me this!” Guiltily, Quentin lingers in the deserted hallway, listening. Eliot’s talking more quietly, but the acoustics of the throne room are such that he can still make out most of the words through the slight opening in the door.

“To be fair, I didn’t tell anyone. And neither did he, as far as I knew. That’s kinda why it worked. And our lives were a complete and utter cluster, if you recall. Not much time for the caring and sharing.”

“You make time for shit like this! I mean El, you lived out the fucking _beauty of all life_. You fell _in love_,” Margo says, and Quentin’s heart stutters.

“Bambi…”

“And so did he. And you got back here and remembered and then—”

Eliot fell in love. Quentin fell in love. They lived out a whole life together, and simplest equation, they—fell in love with each other?

What if they had? It’s romantic; it’s sort of beautiful, the idea that he and Eliot might have fallen in love under different circumstances, under any circumstances, like a universal constant. The other timelines Fogg was talking about. A sojourn in the past as part of a magical quest.

But then Eliot says, “And _nothing_. The people we fell in love with are gone. It’s like they never existed, all right? _We’re_ not the same people anymore.”

“Bullshit. You know that’s not true.”

“It may as well be,” Eliot bites out. “He doesn’t remember. Arielle, and Teddy, and… everything else. I am literally the only person in the universe who knows what happened—”

Teddy. _I named him after you_. Quentin’s son, the one he has no recollection of or context for. Eliot remembers him. It happened.

Arielle, though.

Quentin hasn’t consciously been considering it, the question of who he had married, but it makes sense that if he had a son, he had a son _with someone_. As much as it’s a beautiful idea that he and Eliot had fallen in love and gotten married and built a family together, the anatomy isn’t really quite right for procreation, at least not in Fillory past. Adoption, sure, or surrogates, there are lots of ways it might have… but it sounds more like Quentin had…

If Quentin had fallen in love with _Arielle_, apparently, and gotten married, and had a son, does that mean Eliot had fallen in love with someone else too? Someone else in the past, who doesn’t exist now?

“Yeah, because you’re the one who erased—”

“Because he was dead!” Eliot exclaims, raising his voice for the first time. He lowers it again almost immediately. “Bambi, our best friend was dead, and none of the rest of it mattered. It’s done, and I would do it again. And so would you in my place, you know you would, so don’t even start with me.”

Oh, no. Has Eliot been walking around nursing a broken heart this entire time? And he hasn’t said a word about it to Quentin, who’d spent the better part of a year pouring all his Alice woes out to Eliot, once upon a time. Hadn’t told Margo till now, even as he was dealing with the aftermath of possession and the resurrection of one of his other friends? It’s just like him, to carry it alone, and deny everything, even the existence of the love that spawned the hurt to begin with.

Quentin’s heart breaks in turn, for Eliot, and then, selfishly, for himself too. Because God, of course he never had a chance with Eliot. What had he been thinking?

There’s a long pause, which Quentin supposes is Margo ceding the point. “Are you going to tell him?” she asks finally.

“I have to,” Eliot says, but he sounds uncertain. “I want to. I was just waiting, until we knew it worked, and things were stable, so it wouldn’t be as much of a shock. But then, it got harder and harder to say anything. Because how could I tell him about my fucking broken heart and regrets about an alternate timeline and lost chance at love when he’s _happy_? He doesn’t share the experience, even if he did back then, because I literally took away his memory of it. It hurts.”

“And now? What changed your mind?”

Eliot sighs. “You wouldn’t believe me if I told you. But he deserves the truth, doesn’t he? Even if he doesn’t want it anymore. He should at least have the chance to hear it. And you know, maybe—”

They both drop their voices to whispers, and Quentin can’t make out anything more.

“Quentin?”

Quentin jumps away from the door, startled. It’s Fen. Reflexively, he takes her arm and leads her a few steps down the hall, but neither Eliot nor Margo emerge from the room. It seems his eavesdropping has gone unnoticed.

“Uh, hey.”

“What are you doing?” she asks, curious but not suspicious, he hopes. He doesn’t know Eliot’s former wife that well, actually.

“I just need to ask El about something,” he says. “But it sounds like he’s busy with Margo.”

“That works out, doesn’t it? I need to talk to Margo,” she replies, and they wait together, too innocently far from the door to be suspected of overhearing anything.

It’s not a moment too soon, because Margo bursts through the door, followed closely by Eliot. Eliot’s carefully blank-faced, but Margo looks angry. Or worried, it’s hard to say: the two emotions end up looking very similar on her face.

“Oh,” Margo says, catching sight of them in the hall, suddenly cool as a cucumber. “Hey, Q. Fen, good to see you back.”

“Can we talk?” Fen asks, forgoing pleasantries.

“Uh. Sure,” Margo replies. She and Eliot exchange an unreadable look, and it’s so reminiscent of Brakebills that Quentin feels a nostalgic pang, quite independent of all the other pangs this morning has cost him. “Let’s walk and talk,” she suggests, and the two of them head off together.

“Um,” Quentin says, once they’re left alone. “In there?”

Eliot, who’s still standing on the threshold of the throne room, laughs a little. “I guess it’s as apt a place as any,” he responds, and leads the way back inside.

No one says anything for a few seconds. Quentin knows that he should start by asking about the lifetime they lived, the memories he’s missing, but he can’t find the words. For all that he’s been driven by insatiable curiosity ever since he realized he was missing something, now, he thinks, he doesn’t want to know.

He doesn’t want to hear about his wife who never existed, and how he was apparently walking around with a broken heart once he returned to their normal timeline. He doesn’t want to hear about Eliot’s—whatever, and how he’s still pining for him, apparently. Maybe it makes him a bad _husband_, fuck, and a worse friend, but standing in front of Eliot, who he thought he was in love with in _this_ life, but now isn’t so sure, after all the words they’d flung at each other last night, it’s all just too raw.

“I should apologize,” Eliot says, in a pointedly calm voice. “I really am sorry, Q. That I lied to you. And that what I did made you doubt your own mind.”

“Okay,” Quentin says, keeping it civilized in turn. “Thanks. And I get that that’s not what you were trying to do. But Eliot, why wouldn’t you just—”

He cuts himself off. Doesn’t he know why Eliot didn’t just tell him? It hurt him too much to talk about, he had said to Margo. His _lost love_. The fact that he thought Quentin wouldn’t understand anymore, since he didn’t remember his own broken heart.

Eliot waits, but when Quentin doesn’t go on, he continues himself. “And I’m sorry for what I said yesterday.” He doesn’t specify which part. “It was cruel, and I didn’t mean it, not really.” But he’s looking down, and doesn’t sound as convinced on this point.

“Really?” Quentin asks, sinking feeling back in his chest, but speaking through it. “Because it didn’t feel like it was coming out of nowhere, El. It sounded like you _did_ mean it.”

“Look, I didn’t—I don’t think you understand, fully, the impact that your—your death had, on us all. I mean, how could you? You were dead. But we. I wasn’t okay,” Eliot says. “So when you brought up Blackspire, I just lost it, I guess. But what I said about killing yourself and pretending it was brave, I really fucking didn’t mean that. Because I know that you struggle with it, and it’s honestly the bravest thing I’ve ever seen in my life, and I shouldn’t have thrown it in your face like that.”

It’s Quentin’s turn to look down at his feet. “I shouldn’t have said what I did, about the Monster,” he admits. “I don’t blame you for what he did, Eliot, I really don’t.”

“Really?” Eliot asks, in exactly the same tone as Quentin just used. “Because I wouldn’t blame you if you did. If I hadn’t jumped the literal gun and shot him, then none of the rest of it would have happened. I know that.”

“Why did you do it?” Quentin asks out of nowhere, a year too late. “We had a plan, why would you—”

“A plan that involved you burying yourself alive for eternity! Why would you do _that_?”

“Someone had to do something!”

Eliot lifts up his arms like Quentin’s made his point for him, and fuck, he sort of has, hasn’t he?

“Listen, Q. I’m sorry that shooting the Monster got us all into a metric fuckton of shit, but I’m not sorry that you didn’t end up as his plaything for all of eternity. And you know what? I’m sorry that I lied to you, and that you can’t remember the Mosaic, and I’m sorry if you can never forgive me for it. But you’re here. You can get married again. You can be a dad. You’ll make new memories, just as happy, even happier, maybe. And I’ll never be sorry for that. Even if you never want to see me again.”

He sounds so resigned, so convinced of his own rightness, so nobly self-sacrificing, that Quentin kind of wants to hit him, but also to get him an ice pack afterward and make fun of his black eye. It’s _Eliot_. Is there a world in which Quentin doesn’t want to see Eliot ever again? Not after everything the Monster did. Not when he blamed him for fucking up his relationship with Alice, the first time around. Not since the day they met, not ever.

All of a sudden, Quentin doesn’t doubt his feelings anymore. He thinks he never did, actually, or it was just a momentary lapse. He loves Eliot, always has. Maybe it didn’t look exactly the same way to his eyes as it does now, but it’s always been there, this deep and abiding love.

“Fine,” Quentin says. “Fine, you utter asshole, I get it. But you have to understand that when you do shit like this, taking my memories, invalidating my choices, it makes me feel—” Useless. “Listen, this is my life, and maybe I’m not always the best at taking care of it, but I’m fucking trying, all right? And maybe death is a legitimate excuse, but the rest of the time, you might try _asking_ me before making decisions for me.”

“I know,” Eliot says, and he’s placating now, but he sounds like he genuinely means it, too, and it calms Quentin against his will.

“And look, El. That’s not—I’m pissed, okay? I’m really fucking pissed at you.”

“As is your right,” Eliot says cautiously.

“But it’s not like we haven’t all done shit like this to each other before. Or for each other. And Jesus, it’s not healthy, I know it’s not, and I know we should stop, but I don’t see how, not if the universe keeps throwing us into these shitty no-win situations and forcing us to make, like, impossible choices at every turn!”

Eliot laughs, relaxing a bit. “Do you ever wonder about normal people? Like, there are people out there who never have to decide if it’s worth sacrificing their friend’s memories of an alternate timeline in order to bring him back to life.”

“Or whether it’s morally acceptable to burden an unwilling Niffin with her shade, because that’s probably what the shaded version of her would have wanted?”

That’s just the tip of the iceberg, honestly. They’ve all had their own agendas, worked at cross purposes, betrayed one another at some point. Mourned each other. Forgiven each other. Loved each other.

Most people never learn the lengths to which they’d go, or the trespasses they’d be willing to forgive. They don’t have to. Their lives don’t teach them that sort of love. Quentin had been like that, once, but not anymore. He’s learned that life is not a story, or if it is, the author’s a piece of shit and satisfying narrative closure is never a guarantee. Alice died before Quentin had the chance to earn her forgiveness for cheating on her. Penny died before he and Kady got to explore what they could be, and now she’s stuck seeing a doppelganger she doesn’t love, who doesn’t love her. Eliot was possessed by a monster before Quentin even got to be mad at him for shooting said monster, let alone get over the anger. They could all die tomorrow, or be faced with another awful, impossible choice. In the face of that, what can you do besides love the people you love, and do the best you can with what you’ve got?

So maybe it’s fucked up, what Eliot did, but Quentin can forgive a lot of fucked up things.

“Yeah, so, I’m mad. But that doesn’t mean I don’t want to see you again, or that I don’t, like, care about you anymore. That’s never the case, okay? Just for future reference.”

Eliot smiles at him, eyes bright. “I love you, Quentin,” he says, which is not what Quentin was expecting at all, but it’s somehow absolutely the right response to what Quentin was trying to say. “Seriously. I know I don’t say it enough. But I’m so grateful for you.”

“I know,” Quentin says, and Eliot laughs again.

“You’ve been waiting to Han Solo someone your entire life, haven’t you?”

“Well, yeah. Who hasn’t?”

Mirth fading, Eliot stares at him seriously for a long moment. “Q. I do want to tell you about that life. About the White Lady, and what I did. The things you forgot, your wife and son, and—and about me, our family. If you want to know. Maybe it’ll make things weird for a while, because you don’t remember it yourself, and your feelings are probably different, now, but—”

“Actually, can we not?” Quentin asks, a little apologetically, because it really is too much for him this second. “We’re okay, El, right?”

“Right,” Eliot says slowly.

“So I mean, I can’t remember that life. I get that you and I shared an experience that was like, literally out of this world, or timeline, or whatever, and that losing that must have been hard.” He takes a breath, closes his eyes, misses whatever expression Eliot’s wearing. “I get that it’s hard for you to talk about it. And honestly, whatever I might have felt then, I sort of lack the context for it now, you know? Like, I don’t even remember them, my wife and my son. And it’s been pretty jarring, for me, to feel the gaps in my memory.”

“Oh,” Eliot says. “I hadn’t realized that you feel the gaps so—I’m sorry—but maybe if we tried to fill them in—?”

“Yeah, I know you’re sorry, you’ve said,” Quentin says, with a little smile. “And it’s okay. But I’m just not sure how useful it would be, for you, or for me, to rehash that life. I’m sure it would be painful for you, and I’m not sure I’d be able to, um, empathize with how you feel about it. Because it can’t really matter to me, anymore, right? Not compared to how I feel about, um, people in this life.”

It’s the closest he can bring himself to confessing his own feelings, but for some reason, of all the things he’s thrown out in this conversation, this is the one that hits Eliot the hardest. He looks stricken for a second, before he straightens his face out again. Quentin feels guilt hit him in turn. He’s being a bad friend, isn’t he? But he really doesn’t think he can listen to it right now, some fairytale about how he and Eliot lived together for decades, brothers in arms on a quest for magic, falling in love with other people.

“Okay, Q, that’s fine,” Eliot starts.

“Listen, El, maybe another time. Just, not right now. I’m not ready to hear it. I’m sorry.”

“You don’t have to be sorry about that,” Eliot says, holding out his arm like an offering, and Quentin steps into the hug. He thinks that’s the end of it, but then Eliot says, to the top of his head, “If you don’t want to hear about it, that’s fine, that’s your decision, and I respect it, I swear. But just, if you ever do. I promise, I’ll tell you the whole truth. About how I felt, and about how you—at least how I thought you felt. Okay?”

“Okay,” Quentin says, and maybe his heart feels warm and melted and too much, the way it always does, around Eliot, and maybe Eliot still sounds a little sad, and maybe they hold on a few seconds or minutes too long, but it’s fine. They’re going to be fine.

* * *

“So,” Alice says.

“So,” Quentin replies.

She laughs. “This is a little awkward.”

“Well, what did you expect from me?” he asks, laughing a bit too.

They’re meeting for coffee. Quentin had been surprised but not unhappy when Alice had contacted him, a few weeks after everything happened in Fillory, asking if he wanted to meet and talk. Now that they’re here, though, conversation is harder than he remembers.

“Okay, can I just get it over with and ask? How is it, with Eliot?”

“Oh. Oh, it didn’t, we’re not—”

“Oh. I’m sorry to hear—”

“No, no, Alice, you don’t have to say that. I mean, after everything I put you through, this is genuinely something you do not have to care about.”

“I care about you,” Alice says, matter-of-fact and immovable as always. “So if you’re hurting, I _am_ sorry, Q. Really.”

Quentin looks down at his coffee cup. “Thanks,” he says. It doesn’t really help, sitting here with his ex-girlfriend and thinking about his disappointed hopes, but it’s nice of her to say.

Alice sighs. “What happened? Yes, I know I don’t have to ask, but I’m asking, Quentin, all right?” she adds, before he can brush her off again. “You don’t have to tell me if you don’t want to, but will you just trust that I wouldn’t ask if I couldn’t handle hearing it?”

Quentin thinks about it. Maybe it’s weird, but there really isn’t any reason he doesn’t want to tell Alice about this. Julia knows the bare bones of what happened with Eliot, but she hadn’t pressed him to talk about it more since they came back from Fillory.

If anything, Alice might find it cathartic. Maybe he’ll find it cathartic too, sharing the experience with her. “Eliot’s in love with someone else,” he says.

“_What_?” Alice asks, setting her coffee cup down with enough force to rattle the little table.

He laughs. “He is in love with someone else, but it is unrequited by the facts of the universe, because he’s in love with someone from the alternate timeline we lived on the key quest, when we solved the Mosaic. Oh, and by the way, we remembered that timeline, only I don’t anymore, because those memories were the price for my resurrection.” It’s really sort of ridiculous, Quentin thinks, and keeps laughing. There are tears in his eyes when he finally stops.

“What?” Alice asks again, but he can see her formidable mind ticking away.

“And it turns out that I had a wife, and a son, and they never existed. But somewhere out there, a version of me was happy, with someone else. Jesus, what the fuck? It figures that the one time I fall in love and actually make it work, I can’t even remember it. But that’s not even the worst part. The worst part is I don’t even care about whoever I married anymore, because it’s not El—” Then he remembers who he’s talking to. Fuck. “I’m sorry.”

Alice waves it off. “I’ve grown accustomed to your insensitivity, Quentin,” she says. “And you know. We’re not dating anymore. For good reason, as it turns out.”

“I guess. Anyway.” He’s about to turn the conversation back to her, but she cuts him off.

“So it was Eliot, then? He’s the one who brought you back?”

“How did you—”

“No one else knew you remembered that timeline except the two of you, right? So it follows that it had to be him. And besides. Just before we did the spell for your body, he said something to me, and it just—it makes sense, now, that he knew he had a way to get you back. It had to be him.”

“Oh,” Quentin says, unsure of what to say to that.

“You know, I wasn’t sure, at the last minute, whether we were doing the right thing,” Alice continues. “Bringing you back, I mean. I’d been through it before, and I was so angry, for so long.”

“Yeah. I remember.” He hesitates. “I was mad, too, when I found out what he did. But then, I couldn’t help but be aware that I don’t have a lot of ground to stand on, when it comes to making decisions for effectively dead people without their informed consent.” He gestures at her a little uncomfortably.

“Love is the worst,” Alice concludes, letting it drop, and the conversation moves on.

They’re quiet as they walk back to the apartment, but it’s a surprisingly comfortable silence. Seeing Alice, listening to her, talking to her, feels good, without the stress of considering how they can level up to their relationship again. They can just get back to enjoying each other’s company. They can try to be friends.

Quentin thinks about it: Alice Quinn, listening to him talk about Eliot. Oh, maybe he’s not rhapsodizing about his feelings, and she’s not being wildly comforting, but she’s listening to him. She knows how he feels and she’s being his friend about it, even though it must be less than pleasant for her.

And then Quentin thinks about the quest life. The one where he fell in love with and married a woman he doesn’t remember, who doesn’t feel real, but also the one where Eliot fell in love with someone he’s lost forever, and _does_ remember. He’s the only one in the universe, as he had said to Margo, who remembers.

Eliot’s been carrying this all alone. He’s been suffering. At least he’s talked about it with Margo, now, but Quentin is one of his best friends, too.

They’ve talked, he and Eliot. He’s visited the castle since everything went down, and sat with all of them, Margo and Fen and Josh and Eliot, drinking wine and doing whatever counts for shooting the breeze, with their fucked up lives. Talked about Brakebills and Quentin’s studies, argued about Fillorian politics. They’ve carefully not brought up their argument, or spent too much time alone together. Eliot hasn’t visited the apartment since Quentin found out the truth.

Quentin had rebuffed him when he had tried to talk about the experience they had shared, because it had all been too much for him then, but now, he thinks, he can do it. He wants to be there for Eliot, even if it’s the nail in the coffin of them ever being more than friends, to hear about how Eliot’s still carrying a torch for somebody else. Because friendship isn’t a consolation prize, is it? It’s still love, in whatever form; and maybe, as Alice so rightly pointed out, love is the worst, but it’s still everything.

Alice follows him to the door and they linger together in awkwardness, which seems to be their destiny together.

“Thanks, Alice,” Quentin says.

“For what?”

“You’re just—you’re a really good person, you know? Even though I fucked it all up. I’m glad I have you in my life. As my friend. If that’s okay.”

She nods. “Yeah. Friends,” she says.

Quentin unlocks the door. “Uh, you’re welcome to—” he starts to offer, unsure of the etiquette with your ex-girlfriend who you cheated on and then left for the hope of someone else, and are now trying to be friends with.

“Oh, no, that’s okay—”

“Q!” comes Julia’s voice, and her footsteps, hurrying to the door. She flings it open before Quentin can. “You just missed—oh, hey, Alice.”

“Hi, Julia,” Alice says. “It’s been a while.”

“Yeah, it’s good to see you,” Julia says, recovering herself and reaching out for a hug. She’s clutching something in her hand. Alice steps into the hug, a little hesitantly. “Come on in,” she adds, pulling Alice across the apartment threshold, and giving Quentin a speaking look over her shoulder. He’s left to follow the two of them into the living room.

Honestly, inviting Alice inside had been more politeness than anything else; he _is_ happy to be her friend again, but all the same, he thinks the two of them have hit their awkward conversational threshold for the day. Rebuilding a real friendship is going to be the work of years, not hours. Fortunately, Julia seems more than willing to pick up the slack, asking all sorts of questions about Alice’s work. Quentin remembers, again, that the two of them had worked closely together while he’d been gone. It’s not crazy that they’re friends, now. Julia had fallen down on his side of the breakup, naturally, with their history and everything going on with his memories, but apparently she’s missed Alice too.

Quentin is content to sit and watch and listen, zoning out a little until he hears Alice say, “What’s that?”

It’s a piece of paper Julia has been holding in one hand since she ran to the door, and which she’s set down on the table beside her.

“Oh, it’s—it’s for Quentin. Margo was here, she left it for you. A message, she said.”

“Margo was here?” Quentin asks.

“Yeah, I was going to tell you,” Julia says, in a would-be casual sort of voice, like she hadn’t been running to the door to do so. “But I mean,” she adds, and looks at Alice.

Alice, in turn, looks a little uncomfortable. “Oh, I can go, if you two want to—but it’s fine, I’m not going to like, freak out if you talk about Margo. Or, you know. Eliot.”

Julia sounds apologetic when she answers. “No, I know. It’s just. Q. It’s your letter. She found it, brought it over in case you still wanted to look at it. I wasn’t sure if you’d want to. Or, if you’d want me to.”

Quentin rolls his eyes. Julia’s curiosity is barely concealed. He holds out his hand and she passes over the folded piece of parchment.

“What letter?” Alice asks, and Julia explains.

“It doesn’t matter,” Quentin says, pressing the thick old-fashioned paper between thumb and forefinger. “I only wanted to see it to solve a mystery. It’s solved, now.” What is Margo playing at? He doesn’t unfold the letter.

“Well, yeah, maybe it doesn’t matter anymore,” Julia says carefully. She flicks her eyes at Alice again, making an assumption that Quentin knows he should correct. “But it’s still interesting from like, an academic Horomancy point of view. It’s physical evidence from an aborted timeline, maybe one of the only pieces in the world.”

“You want to study it, don’t you?” Quentin asks, resigned.

“Um,” she says, with a sheepish smile.

“It _is_ interesting,” Alice pipes up unexpectedly. “The only other evidence that that timeline even happened are your memories, or just Eliot’s, now, I guess. And memories are subjective, but they’re sensory experiences by definition. So the contrast between that sort of evidence and the physical object which is the letter—”

“Oh my God,” Quentin says, and opens the letter just so that he has something to look at that’s not the two of them theorizing.

_… Eliot and I are both dead. The quest sent us to the past—again, super-long story—and you should we know that we led full, good lives, and we took the quest as far as we could, and now there’s something that we need you to do._

Quentin skims the rest of it quickly, then hands the letter to Julia, who reads it too. Alice, who is either the most impartially academic individual alive, decidedly over Quentin, or something of a masochist, reads over Julia’s shoulder after glancing at Quentin to make sure he’s okay with it. He shrugs.

And it’s Alice who speaks up first, soft and thoughtful. “You and Eliot never talked about this again? In all that time?”

“No. Or if we did, those memories are gone too. But I don’t think we did, from what he…” Quentin breaks off, thinking back despite himself. “All I remember is that we were both pretty weirded out after Margo stopped us from going through the clock. We sat together when we got back to Fillory, surrounded by Margo’s wedding presents—long story—and I found this, and I read it. The memories must have come back to us _after_ that, because… I can’t remember if he read it too, but I distinctly remember thinking that it was bizarre that this piece of paper existed at all, like proof of something impossible, proof of—”

“So the objective evidence, the letter, was the trigger for the subjective memories,” Alice starts, but Quentin’s not really listening, because it’s happening again. His mind misses a step and he reels.

“Q?” Julia asks, concerned.

Something about Eliot, and that phrase, proof of _what_? His mind struggles to connect the fragments, until finally, slowly, they coalesce into the disjointed memory he’s tripped upon.

“Julia,” Quentin says, low and stunned. “How did I know Eliot was alive?”

“What?”

“That day, in the park, with the Monster. You were with him, when I realized. What did he say?”

Julia looks nonplussed by this line of questioning. “He told you it was him,” she says.

“I didn’t believe him, though.”

“Yeah, you called bullshit. And then he said something like…” Her eyes grow wide as she realizes what he’s saying. “‘Fifty years,’” she recalls. “I wanted to ask you about it, but I forgot. You think he was talking about the quest?”

“Something only the two of us would have known,” Quentin wonders aloud. “That makes sense. But something else, something about it—”

It feels like the memory he has of telling his dad about his wife and his son. Strangely empty, because he lacks the memory structure that used to support it, but the lack is so prominent, the negative space so vast, that he knows that what he’s missing is _important_.

He reaches for it, the way he felt in that moment, dissociated though the emotions are, context-less. Disbelief and anger that the Monster would try to manipulate him in this way, try to pretend he was Eliot, like Quentin wouldn’t _know_ Eliot, anywhere, anyhow. And then, breaking through the numbness and the forced calm, a shock like a defibrillator, jolting him to life. _Hope_. That Eliot was alive, and more than that, that Eliot—that maybe Eliot—

He tries again, the words thick on his tongue, the recollection murky. “'Fifty years. Who gets—’”

“'Proof of concept like that,’” Alice supplies. Quentin stares at her, having forgotten she was there, both in the park, and here in this room. “That’s what he said. And then, ‘Peaches and plums.’” She wrinkles her nose.

“_Motherfucker_,” Quentin breathes, because the tone of Eliot’s voice, the shape of his mouth forming those words, the soft, shining look in his eyes… Quentin recalls it, and more than that, he recalls the fluttering of his heart at the time, the deep-seated _Princess Bride_ knowledge that what Eliot was saying was actually _I love you_.

“Do you know what it meant?” Alice asks. “Do you remember?”

“Proof of what? What concept?” Julia says, almost at the same time.

“Oh fuck,” Quentin says. “Oh my God. We spent fifty years together. It has to be… _we’re_ the concept.” He knows it with a kind of certainty he can’t explain. “Him and me. What else could it—but then, I married someone else. And he fell in love with someone else, in that life, someone who doesn’t exist anymore. How does that…” He trails off, doubting the logic, even though the emotions feel crystal clear in his heart, absolute truth.

“You’ve loved other people too, in _this_ life,” Alice points out, very wry. “It doesn’t mean you don’t love him now. Or that you didn’t, then. Or that he didn’t. Fifty years is a long time. Things change.”

“Alice,” Quentin says, suddenly realizing that he is, as usual, being a colossally insensitive dick to her.

She actually smiles at him. “Quentin. It’s fine. Go.”

“Go,” he repeats blankly, not understanding, and then he sees the Fillory clock.

Maybe he’s got it all wrong. Maybe he’ll ask Eliot to tell him about that life, and Eliot will spill a dramatic tale about how he fell in love with some exciting Fillorian random, and Quentin settled down with Arielle to raise a family, and they lived out their days as best friends, forever. But fuck, he has to try, doesn’t he? Because what if the way he feels now is the same way he felt back then, in that other life? And what if the look in Eliot’s eyes that set his heart aflutter in the park, the same one that he leveled at Quentin when they walked in the royal gardens, or just before they fell asleep in the same bed, here in this apartment, what if that look means what Quentin thinks it means?

Julia is telling Alice about a relevant book she found in the Brakebills library, and he thinks they’re getting up to go there. He thinks Julia says something to him as she leaves, about taking Alice to Kady’s for dinner afterward. He hears the door shut. He stands in the apartment, alone, and feels the tremulous beat of his own heart, steadying and settling into resolution.

Maybe he’s got it all wrong. But. What if he’s _right_?

* * *

“Sir, the Council is in session, you can’t—”

Quentin ignores the guard and flings the door open.

The entire table—Margo and Fen seated at either end, Eliot standing at Margo’s shoulder, Josh at Fen’s, and a bunch of people that Quentin doesn’t really care about in the spaces in between—turns to look at him like he’s a crazy person.

He doesn’t care. Social anxiety can go fuck itself. He’s got eyes for exactly one of them, right now.

“Fifty years,” he announces, to the table at large, because if this is his big moment, he’s going to be dramatic enough even for Eliot Waugh. “Who gets _proof of concept _like that?”

Eliot, who had apparently been about to take a sip of water from a fucking crystal goblet, but had paused with his hand elegantly hovering in mid-air upon Quentin’s arrival, actually drops it. Everyone follows Quentin’s stare to watch the delicate glass bounce off the edge of the table and then shatter on the ground beside him.

Always one to escalate the drama, Eliot is.

“Fuck,” Eliot says calmly.

“Fuck,” Margo repeats, much more loudly, standing up. Belatedly, everyone else stands with her. She steals one quick look at Eliot before continuing, “I hereby declare that this meeting is adjourned. Shut up, Tick,” she adds, before he says anything. “Now, let’s all retire to somewhere not fucking here.”

“A walk in the gardens, for fresh air, before we resume these discussions with new energy!” Fen suggests brightly, and that gets everyone moving.

Quentin stands still while they all file out past him. When Margo, last to leave, reaches him, however, she turns back to Eliot, who hasn’t moved from where he’s standing at the head of the table.

“Baby,” she says, very firmly.

“I already know what you’re going to say, Bambi.”

Margo takes a deliberate pause. “I love you, Eliot,” she says, something private and sacred, like Quentin isn’t standing right next to her.

Eliot smiles, very small, very brief. He flicks his eyes at Quentin for a second, but then returns his gaze to Margo. “I love you, Margo,” he responds, with similar weight.

“And you,” Margo adds, sounding more like herself, shoving Quentin in the arm.

“Hey,” Quentin says. “I uh, got your message.”

“Yeah. Thought you might have.” She rolls her eyes, and leaves the room, shutting the door behind her.

There’s a silence that stretches, expectant. Quentin takes one deliberate step, then another, making his way slowly around the long table. He pauses when he reaches the shimmering pattern of broken crystal on the ground. Eliot, who hasn’t lifted his gaze from Quentin since Margo left the room, looks down now too.

“Do you, uh, want some help?” Quentin offers.

“Please,” Eliot replies, and so Quentin mends the goblet. He’s about to pick it up from the ground when it floats of its own volition back to the table. Eliot. They lock eyes again, and Quentin knows they’re both thinking of that moment in the kitchen, the push and pull of their magic, together.

Quentin is searching for a way to start, but Eliot preempts him. “You remember me saying that to you, in the park,” he guesses.

“Sort of,” Quentin answers. “I was just with Alice and Julia, and they filled in some of the blanks, because it’s weird, to remember something that I don’t quite... it’s like, I remember the words, the way I felt, the way it convinced me that it had to be you, but I don’t understand… I don’t think I have the memories to understand why.”

Eliot nods. He’s still very forcefully calm. “It’s because you don’t remember the first time. When you said it to me.”

“Proof of concept,” Quentin repeats. “Us?”

“Q,” Eliot says, and then seems to lose his words. That’s all right. Quentin can help.

“I had a wife. You told me I had a wife.”

“You did,” Eliot confirms.

“And a son. Ted. Teddy.”

“That’s right.”

“And you… you were happy too. I heard you talking to Margo. You fell in love with someone else. You’ve been mourning him.”

“Uh, no. I mean, yes, I was, but not anymore.” He makes a complicated, annoyed face.

“You mean, you’ve moved on?” Quentin tries.

Eliot sighs. “No. I mean, I’m not mourning him because he isn’t dead. Anymore. God, if you’re going to make me say it…”

“I think I am, actually,” Quentin says slowly, because he thinks he knows where this is going, but it’s not quite sinking in yet.

“Fine. Fine. Q. I didn’t fall in love with _someone else_, okay? It’s always been you. Happy now?”

Eliot sounds so sharp and defensive, in contrast to the previous calm, that part of Quentin wants to put him out of his misery, just take him in his arms and say, _sweetheart_, _yes, I’m happy, and my happiness belongs to you, so please feel it too, it only works if we share it_. But. He’s also kind of upset, still, and it makes him a tiny bit petty.

“I’m ready to talk about this now,” he says.

“Obviously,” Eliot replies. He steps around Quentin to pull out Margo’s chair sideways, angling it away from the table, then drops into it like his strings have been cut. “So?” he prompts.

“So, how exactly did it work? You made a deal with the White Lady?”

The sad thing is, Eliot doesn’t even look crestfallen that Quentin, for all intents and purposes, just ignored his confession of love. He doesn’t push back. He just looks resigned. It takes the wind out of whatever spiteful or righteously angry sails Quentin’s been riding. Of course. Fucking Eliot, he thinks. Quentin fucking_ loves him_.

“Like I told you, Julia and Alice came up with the body spell,” Eliot says. He’s back to being calm again. “But there wasn’t a way to get your spirit back from the Underworld, except across the Lethe.”

“The river that makes you forget?”

“It’s for reincarnation, in the myths. You get a blank slate, when you come back for a second round of life. But since you theoretically lived out another life…”

“I only lost memories of one,” Quentin finishes, fascinated despite himself. “That is… that is some impressive loophole rigging, El.”

“I can’t take credit for that, either,” Eliot admits. “It was dangled in front of me, by a questing creature of Fillory. I made a _wish_. It sounds like fairytale bullshit, but it was honestly bizarrely technical.”

“I forget that life, and come back to this one.”

“No one the wiser,” Eliot says. “Except.”

“Except I told my dad about it. If I hadn’t, I would never… but Eliot. What I don’t get is, why didn’t you just tell me? If you—I mean, if you—”

Eliot _loves him_. Not someone else. Him. Still hasn’t sunk in.

“Q, don’t you get it? We never talked about that life, not after the day we got back. Not after… you, when we got back, you just said it. We’d spent decades together, and you just looked at me and said, ‘Why the fuck not,’ why not give it a shot, you and me, and I didn’t think it could be real. I couldn’t let myself believe it, because if I did, and then you didn’t actually… or if I fucked it up—”

“Oh,” Quentin says. He’s thinking about their sleepover; Eliot, saying, _if they didn’t want me by light of day, it’d be easier if I’d already decided that was going to happen_. “You were afraid.”

“I said no. I fucked it up anyway, and I brushed you off, and I knew, somewhere…” Eliot’s voice breaks, steeped in self-loathing. He gathers himself, and continues, “Anyway, I promised myself I would be braver, if I ever made it back, from the Monster. But when I did, you were gone.”

“I’ve been back, though,” Quentin says, just like he had when they first fought, but he’s gentle now, not accusatory.

“You’ve been back _with Alice_,” Eliot corrects, and he’s emphatic but not bitter. They’re not fighting anymore, Quentin realizes. They’re back to building their bridge. They’re coming from different places, trying to reach an understanding, so close to meeting in the middle that he can almost taste it. “Look, I didn’t want to make things weird. I didn’t think I had the right to—I mean, I turned _you_ down. I gave up my chance. And you’re with Alice, and you still have the chance to be happy, and why should I get to ruin that for you? Again?”

Quentin takes a deep breath, and goes for it. “Well, you’re too late for that. And also, you’re an idiot.”

“What?”

“I broke up with Alice. A few weeks before I came here last time, when you were off with Fen.”

“What?” Eliot repeats. “Are you okay? And I mean, you were just saying you saw her—”

“We’re staying friends. For real, this time. I think we’re both happier that way. But you should ask me why we broke up.” Eliot shakes his head, like he’s trying to clear it, but doesn’t say anything. Quentin barrels on anyway. “It’s because I realized that I had feelings for someone else, and that wasn’t fair to Alice or our relationship.”

“Q…”

“And maybe,” Quentin continues loudly, talking over him, “I always had these feelings. Maybe I was already halfway in love, and just never had the space, or the time, to explore the possibility. Or maybe I did have that time, decades of it, but now I just _don’t remember_.”

“Q…” repeats Eliot, like it’s the only letter of the alphabet he’s ever learned.

Quentin takes a step forward. “You do, though. Would you tell me about it, if I asked? The beauty of our life together? You promised me the truth, right?”

“You’re doing the thing where you’re super awkward and intense now, you know that, right?” Eliot asks, straightening up in the chair.

“Yeah,” Quentin replies, and takes another step forward.

“Because you like me,” Eliot clarifies. “And you think I feel—like that—about you too.”

“Well, you did just confess your love,” Quentin points out, like a condescending little shit. But come on, he totally has the right to be, right now. “So?”

There are really no steps forward left to take, so Quentin does the thing he’s wanted to do for weeks and months and years, probably, and just crawls into Eliot’s lap, knees hugging his waist, bracing his arms on Eliot’s shoulders. Eliot’s lips are parted and his eyes are wide; he looks amazed, and flatteringly, not a little hot for it.

For his part, Quentin’s so wound up he’s honestly not sure how he’s maintaining his kind of bored, dry tone, but he manages, “Well? I’m waiting for you to tell me. About us. How you feel. The quest. How we fell in love.”

“Q,” Eliot says, with a breathless disbelieving laugh, “What I’m feeling is a little overwhelmed by your criminal attractiveness right now.” He has to look up at Quentin, like this. The reversal is strange and heady.

“That’s a start,” Quentin replies, and holds eye contact, and waits some more.

Eliot brings one hand up against Quentin’s back, the other to the back of his neck, and Quentin remembers it, he does, from that night he ran away from, the first time. He feels like melting into the touch, into a kiss he knows is coming. But what Eliot says is: “You’re my best friend, too, you know. If it’s never more than that, it’s still more than I ever thought I’d have.”

It’s sweet, and earnest, and heartbreaking, and not really what Quentin needs to hear right now.

“Yeah,” he says. “Same. But I’m saying, I think there’s a pretty good chance it _is_ going to be more than that. Proof of concept, right? The quest.”

“I didn’t fall in love with you on the quest,” Eliot answers slowly, and for one ridiculous panicked second, perched on Eliot’s fucking lap, Quentin thinks he got it wrong. “I don’t know exactly when. But it was before. Like, hopelessly, embarrassingly, way before.”

“Really?” Quentin asks, and one of his hands has come up to touch Eliot’s face before he knows he’s doing it.

“Yes, _really_, Q. Oblivious as you are, it can’t have escaped even your notice that I found you attractive, like, the moment we met. I wanted you on the lawn at Brakebills, for fuck’s sake,” Eliot snipes.

“_Wanted_, sure,” Quentin says, like he’s not giddy at the mere prospect of it, “but that’s not the same thing as—”

“And then I got to know you,” Eliot interrupts, still sounding irritated, but in that tight way he has when he’s tamping down on some feeling that’s too big to repress or contain. “And I don’t know how you can say when the getting-to part’s done, and you actually _know_ someone. How do you pinpoint a date and a time for that? But that was it, okay? I knew you. So I loved you.”

Fuck, Quentin’s going to cry, isn’t he? Or is this laughter bubbling up inside him, pure, unfiltered happiness?

“I’m a little surprised,” Quentin says, fighting against the smile blooming on his face, but he can hear it breaking through in his voice. He twists one of Eliot’s curls around his finger, just to give his restless hand something to do. “I mean, I guess I figured that if either one of us was going to make a really _sappy_ romantic declaration, it would be me.”

Eliot blinks.

“So, where’s the debauchery I was promised? Or is your reputation all just false adv—”

Eliot hitches Quentin closer, deliberately. He seems to be recovering himself. “Are you sure you want to do this, Coldwater?” he asks, matching Quentin’s teasing tone, but with something low and dangerous underneath.

“You’re not doing anything.”

“You realize,” Eliot says, finally making his move, which is to press a whisper of a kiss to the juncture of Quentin’s jaw and his neck, “that I have—” with more soft imprints of his lips, to his jawline, and neck, the spot behind his ear, his cheek, everywhere except Quentin’s mouth, “a few decades’ experience—” when Eliot reaches the corner of his smile, Quentin, a little desperate, tries to turn his head for a real kiss, only for Eliot to evade him, with a devious smile of his own, “of strumming your strings.” The hand on Quentin’s back has crept up the back of his shirt, fingers stroking the skin there, a feathery light touch. “If you want me to take you apart, baby, you’ve only got to ask.”

And then he makes a big production of leaning back in the chair, and doing some waiting himself.

Fucker. Yes, Quentin wants that: hours and days and years of being taken apart by Eliot’s searing touch, but he also wants to put back together, by the look in his eyes, the way Quentin feels when they’re together. Happy, warm, whole.

“You put me back together, too,” Quentin says, out loud, because why the fuck not? “Being with you makes me feel whole.”

Quentin sees the naked shock in Eliot’s eyes, before his face relaxes into something annoyed and fond.

“Listen,” Eliot says, sounding more like himself, or maybe more like Margo, in the way that people who have lived in each other’s pockets for years end up taking on each other’s speech patterns, sometimes, “You can have _tender_, or you can have hot as fuck. Pick one.”

Quentin laughs. But he says, “No.”

It can’t be one or the other with Eliot, or something in between. He won’t pretend it’s less than it is, the way they are together, not anymore, not now that he sees it for what it is.

Eliot closes his eyes, and Quentin tips forward to touch his forehead with his own, feels the soft exhale against his skin, and he knows that Eliot has heard what he’s really trying to say. “Okay,” he promises quietly. “Both. For you, darling, both. For you, everything.” He sounds pained, or terrified, or something else that makes Quentin’s heart go out to him.

“Eliot,” Quentin says.

“Just, listen. I’ll try. But so you know. It sounds like something I really might fuck up. In fact, I did. More than once. If you knew… if you remembered, how I fucking threw away all the chances you gave me…”

“Eliot, this is _my_ chance. Don’t you get it? This is my choice. I mean, if you want—”

Eliot kisses him then, a real kiss, no teasing about it; they meet in desperation.

Quentin runs his hands up and down Eliot’s chest, feeling blindly for the buttons of his vest, unwilling to break the kiss or pull back for long enough to expedite the process, so he ends up just kind of pawing at him ineffectually. But that’s fine, that’s good too. He doesn’t know when Eliot had started wearing his earth clothes on Fillory, but whatever, it’s a good look, everything’s a good look on Eliot.

Eliot bites his lip, which effectively derails Quentin’s train of thought, and causes him to lose his grip on whatever he’s clutching—Eliot’s pocket square, as it turns out, which flies out of his pocket and, instead of fluttering to the floor, lands with a soft thump, like it has weight.

Eliot stops what he’s doing, which is the last thing Quentin wants right now. “Oh,” he says, looking over, and floats the bright silk back to his hand, which unfortunately means he has to extract said hand from Quentin’s shirt.

“Really?” Quentin asks. “You’re really concerned about the integrity of your outfit right now?”

Eliot sighs, put-upon. “It’s not the outfit,” he says, and up close, Quentin can see that the corner of the square is intricately folded, forming a little parcel. Something Eliot was keeping in his waistcoat pocket, by his heart.

“Is it something important? Did it break?” Quentin asks, trying to be solicitous, when he really wants Eliot’s attention back on him.

“Hmm? No, it’s fine, it’s charmed,” Eliot answers, and is about to tuck it away again when something in his voice makes Quentin clasp his wrist, curious.

“What is it?” he asks, because Eliot sounds too decidedly casual for it to be nothing.

“Uh,” Eliot says. He’s not much of a blusher, the lucky bastard, but he looks a little discomfited nonetheless. He handles the bundled up corner of the silk square gently between his long, lovely fingers, seemingly coming to a decision, and drops it into Quentin’s palm.

Quentin unfolds the fabric carefully, and sees…

“I guess it’s yours, anyway.”

“_Eliot_,” Quentin says. Because it’s a sharp, shining, irregularly shaped fragment of porcelain, the exact shape and size of the one that’s missing from the mug in Quentin’s kitchen cabinet.

“I wasn’t sure where you were, with your thesis. Or if you still needed it. But if you want to take it back with you, and put it back together, that’s—”

“Actually. My thesis is nowhere near done. So how about you hold on to it for me for a while? Like, a long while.” _Forever_, he wants to say, but it’s too soon, it’s too soon, right?

Eliot smiles, a tiny, precious thing. His eyes are bright, in the way Quentin loves. “Yeah. Okay.” But he shifts, nudging Quentin out of his lap, and then stands up too. He folds and tucks his pocket square back into place precisely, even though the rest of him looks decidedly disheveled, like he’s been pushed into a chair by someone motivated and handsy. He takes Quentin’s hand in his own, courteous.

“What?” Quentin asks, baffled and a little put-out by the proceedings.

“So, you don’t have to mend it, right this second. But. Can we go back to the apartment anyway?”

“Okay…” Quentin trails off, question implied, although he goes easily enough when pulled. He doesn’t know if it’s coincidence, or the time of day, or simply _Margo_, but the halls are thankfully deserted.

It’s not until they’re facing the Fillory clock that Eliot speaks again, and when he does, it’s quiet. Nervous, maybe. “Listen, I’m into a little exhibition and royal roleplay in the council room as much as the next person. And I have a lot of ideas. But this time, let’s just. Let’s just go home, yeah?”

Oh.

“Home,” Quentin agrees, squeezing his hand, and opens the door.

* * *

Quentin insists that the second bedroom in the apartment is still officially Julia’s room, even though Julia is pretty much living full time at Brakebills now, and only comes back for a weekend in the city on occasion. Since Quentin’s working on his thesis in earnest, the little nerd, he gets to see plenty of her on campus during the week.

The apartment is still, officially, Quentin’s apartment, so maybe it makes sense that he gets to choose what the bedroom is called. But Eliot gets to wake up there every morning, in _Quentin’_s (their) bedroom, and return through the clock every evening, like, well, clockwork, most days. The two hour time difference means that he has to drag himself out of bed while Quentin lies there, enticingly asleep, begging to be disturbed from his peaceful slumber, but on the other hand, he generally gets back earlier in the afternoon, ready to accost Quentin as he gets home at the end of the day. Acceptable tradeoff. 

He doesn’t know if the whole split-across-two-worlds situation is going to be tenable in the long run, or if he wants to find another “job” eventually, so to speak, but Eliot’s still working out how to be a person who thinks in terms of the long run. For now, he gets to spend his weekdays with Margo, and his nights and weekends with Quentin, and that’s more than enough. It’s just spectacular, in fact.

But anyway, the second bedroom wears a lot of hats. Julia’s erstwhile room, still hers whenever she comes to visit. Eliot and Margo both overrule Quentin, and decide that it’s unequivocally _Margo’s _room whenever he drags her back on Friday evenings, insisting that she needs running water and nerd-time with Quentin to recharge herself for kingly duties.

When Fray comes through the clock, having spent a few days in the castle with Fen, she promptly claims the room as her own. “Shouldn’t I have a room in the house of my not-father, and new step-not-father?” she asks imperiously. She doesn’t crack a smile, but Eliot bursts out laughing, both at her tone and at Quentin’s expression, which is oscillating wildly between bemused, charmed, and alarmed at his sudden acquisition of a fully grown, somewhat disconcerting step-not-daughter.

“Let’s hope she doesn’t want to bring her boyfriend to visit,” Eliot whispers, and laughs some more.

And then, when Quentin and Eliot are alone, and something comes up relating to the Mosaic, it is, by silent agreement, the preteen sleepover room where they go to talk it out.

It’s not that they don’t talk in their own bedroom, in their own bed. Quentin will ramble on about his thesis, and Eliot will complain about the latest crisis in Fillory, or sometimes they’ll reminisce about their year together at Brakebills, or talk about the Monster, or wander back further, sharing things from college and adolescence and childhood. They sit on the floor by the couch in the living room, or they stand in the kitchen, Eliot cooking and Quentin watching, and they talk and they tease and they laugh and they commiserate, and for the most part, it’s bizarrely, deliriously happy and good.

But there are moments when it hangs heavy between them, the knowledge that there’s this divide they can’t fully cross. When something reminds Eliot of that life, and he _misses_ it, misses being able to talk to Quentin about it, and then feels guilty for missing something that he took away himself. Or times when Eliot catches himself mid-mention of Teddy, and Quentin grows quiet, sad that he can’t remember an experience that was so important between them. They store those moments in the second bedroom. Quentin can admit his ridiculous anxiety that Eliot loves someone that Quentin doesn’t know how to be anymore, lacking memories of the life they shared. Eliot can confess that he’s scared that Quentin still resents him for it, for making a decision that hadn’t felt like a choice at all, at the time, but which Quentin has to live with the consequences of. 

They can curl toward one another on the bed in the dark, and Eliot can tell Quentin a story about Teddy. About meeting Arielle. About peaches and plums and the little garden they had planted, how it had grown. Endless days of constructing tile patterns that used to haunt their dreams, but the colors and arrangements of which escape Eliot’s recollection now.

It’s just little tidbits, the ones that stand out, because Eliot doesn’t remember it all clearly enough to spin an organized narrative, and Quentin doesn’t usually want to hear it all anyway. But they try. They’re trying, Eliot reminds himself, and that means something. 

Tonight, however, the second bedroom is potentially going to host a cage match that promises to be interesting. They have their friends over, and it’s getting late, which means that Quentin has asked Julia to stick around for the weekend, and Margo has assumed she’s not going back to Fillory, tonight. Eliot catches Quentin’s eyes across the room, where he’s standing with Margo and Fen, gestures at Julia, then Margo, and makes a face.

Quentin shrugs. Eliot smiles. This is going to be good. “Here you go,” he says, handing a drink to Kady, who’s watching Julia say goodbye to the other Penny. He’s rolling his eyes, having agreed to switch places with Josh a couple of hours in, so that someone always remains in Fillory to hold the time-bind.

“Cheers,” she says, and downs half of it in one go. She catches his look and adds, “You’re not going to be superior, and say I need to savor it, right?” 

“Actually, I was going to be both gauche and daring of bodily harm, and ask if you’re okay.” 

Eliot knows from Julia that Kady is, for the most part, doing fine. He’s inclined to trust Julia’s judgment, and he’s never been particularly close with her himself. But standing here, watching her watching Penny-23, he can’t help but feel a wave of empathy and guilt that’s almost too much to bear. He got his person back from the Underworld. The White Lady had offered him the unused wish, for Quentin. But could she have offered it to Kady instead, for Penny?

The story of what Eliot had done has made the rounds by now, but he doesn’t think Kady knows the details of it, that it had been Quentin _and Penny’s_ wish he had co-opted. Either way, she must be feeling the unfairness of the resurrection, at least a little. But she’d helped them with Quentin’s body spell, without question.

Kady frowns. “I’m fine,” she says. “You don’t have to feel sorry for me, Eliot.” 

“I know. I don’t,” he says, even though he does, a bit. “It’s just that. We kind of went through the same thing, right? Except I—and you—”

“Yeah, I get it, no need to belabor the point.” She sighs, bitter and sad and resigned all at once. “Look, I’m happy for you guys, okay? No matter what Penny chose, even though it means I’ll never get him back, and I have his asshole doppelganger to contend with, Quentin didn’t deserve to die that way.”

“He is kind of an asshole,” Eliot agrees, which makes her laugh. “I mean, so was our Penny, but he was ours.”

“Yeah,” she says.

“And listen. I might be way out of line here, because I didn’t know him anywhere near as well as you did. But as much as he did what he thought he had to do, I don’t know if he had a real choice. If he had, he probably wouldn’t have chosen to leave you.”

“Yeah. I’m just being maudlin. Tomorrow I’ll wake up and I’ll get to work and I’ll remember that I am, in fact, fine. Or getting there.”

The other Penny blips out of the apartment, and a few seconds later, Josh bursts through the clock, like he’d been lying in wait to make his appearance. He and Julia are walking toward them when Kady suddenly adds, “Just, don’t waste it, all right? You get a second chance. Not everyone—just don’t fuck it up.” 

“I’ll try,” Eliot says, but she’s already turned to talk to Julia, mood seemingly bolstered by the other Penny’s absence. 

He surveys the apartment like a good host, looks at his Quentin and his Bambi and their other friends, and he doesn’t know if it’s something to do with what Kady has just said, or his reflections on the second bedroom and all the baggage it holds, but he suddenly feels the conspicuous absence of Alice Quinn.

Eliot knows that Quentin still sees Alice from time to time. Her job at the Library keeps her busy and far away, but Quentin will meet her for coffee once in a while, so they can catch up, and work on rebuilding their friendship. He always tells Eliot that he’s doing it, and Eliot just says “Okay,” and sometimes he’ll ask where they’re going, or how she’s doing, but mostly he leaves it alone. He trusts Quentin, he really does. But Quentin never invites Alice to the apartment, and Eliot never asks him if he wants to. If he’s refraining for Eliot’s sake, or Alice’s, or his own.

Eliot’s happier than he ever thought he could be, and he trusts Quentin, and they’re fine. But all the same, he thinks about Alice Quinn, and years of unspoken fears festering at the Mosaic, and the things they’re not saying now. He thinks about the memories that Quentin doesn’t have, which still hurt both of them, and all the things that could still divide them.

Don’t fuck it up, he tells himself, and decides to fix what he can, instead.

* * *

Eliot walks through the forest alone. He doesn’t actually know how to go about finding the White Lady now, but he figures that walking the old paths is a good start. It takes a few weeks of wandering further into the forest, leaving the apartment a little earlier and coming back a little later to manage it, but he finally comes across her in an unfamiliar clearing, bending to drink water from a river.

“You’re harder to track down than I remember,” he says, by way of greeting. 

She doesn’t look up at first, but finishes her drink of water. “Well, you didn’t exactly have to search for me, before. I found you.”

Eliot shrugs, conceding the point. “How are you?” he asks.

She straightens up. “Is that why you’ve come, Eliot Waugh, unarmed, seeking me? Not to make a wish, but to ask me how I am?”

“Why not?” he asks. “We’re friends, kind of, right? I feel like we forged a bond. All those late night chats. And, I mean, you helped me when you didn’t have to.”

“I did, in fact, have an obligation, of sorts. But perhaps not to go as far as I went,” she acknowledges.

“I’m grateful,” Eliot says honestly. “I couldn’t have—I mean, without you—”

“What do you actually want?”

He does, actually, want to thank her, but he takes the hint. “I wanted to ask you a question.”

She rolls her eyes. “You want to know if you can unwish the wish you made. Or at least part of it. Oh, Eliot. Predictable.”

“I’m sorry to bore you,” he says.

“And I’m sorry to disappoint you. I cannot undo what I have done.”

“So. He can never remember. They’re really gone.”

Eliot had known, of course. But now he truly knows.

The White Lady stares at him for a long moment. “Yes and no,” she says, no longer sounding bored. “Memories cast into the Lethe can never be recovered.”

“Yeah. There’s not really a ‘no’ in that ‘yes and no’ situation, you realize.” 

She sighs. “You’re really not as good at this as he is. Your _other half_, I mean.” When Eliot doesn’t respond to that little barb, she adds, “_You’ve_ still got them, haven’t you? So they’re not gone, not completely.”

“Thanks,” Eliot says, for lack of anything better. So that’s that. “It’s fine. I just thought I’d, you know. Ask.” 

“I’m doing well, by the way,” she says, by way of goodbye, and half-smiles at him as she retreats out of the clearing, into the darkness of the forest.

He considers her words on the walk back. Yes, he’s still got the memories. He can share them. Hushed conversations in the second bedroom, sharing tidbit after tidbit, once in a while, forever. It would work, he thinks, as long as they both keep trying to bridge the divide. Maybe one day, they’ll be able to bring the conversations out of that safe space, and into the rest of their life together, without fear of it hurting too much.

But as he enters the castle, the place where they built Quentin’s body and brought him back to life, it occurs to him that there might be another, more complete way he could share his memories. Not just talking, although he guesses that’s important regardless. Magic. Memories made communal.

Eliot’s first thought is Julia, who found the body spell in the first place, and is generally easier to track down. But something makes him reach out to Alice instead, unsure of whether she’ll even respond to the message he leaves. If he’s going to do this, he thinks, maybe he needs to start with one of the sources of his fear.

It’s awkward, of course. But he begins with the facts.

“The spell, to recreate Q’s body. We cast, we remembered him,” he says.

“Yes,” Alice agrees. Her expression is a little pinched, but she’s listening.

“It was communal. We all threw our memories into the pot, and the universe took the imprint.”

“Something like that,” she says.

“You couldn’t see my memories, and I couldn’t see yours. But what I’m wondering is, is there a way to write the spell so that we could?”

That gives her pause. “Why would you want that?”

“Not for us, you and me, I mean. I’m wondering if there’s a way to offer up my memories for someone else to _experience_. Psychic magic lets you access someone else’s thoughts and feelings, but it’s harder to navigate, when neither person doing the spell is psychic, and you have a specific—um, _set_ of memories you want the give the other person access to, memories that revolve around a specific idea. I just thought. The body spell was kind of like that. Except no one else could see what we were offering up.” 

“You want to give Quentin back the quest life. The one you two lived together,” Alice realizes.

“Yes and no,” he hedges, with a pang of sympathy for the White Lady.

“Just tell me, Eliot,” Alice snaps. “You’re asking for my help. The least you can do is tell me the truth.”

Eliot hesitates. “I took something from him. I had good reason, but I did it, and it hurt him. It hurts him still, maybe. And I can never give it back. But I can give him this other thing. I’m just. Not sure that he’ll want it, when he sees it.”

He can’t give Quentin back _his_ memories of it, what Quentin thought and felt, whatever it meant to him. They’ll never know that, now. And maybe it’s selfish, or biased, or manipulative, because Quentin won’t have access to the experiences he had alone with Arielle, or Teddy, or the rest of the family, without Eliot. But. It’s what Eliot can offer. It’s what Eliot is afraid of, and he wants to give it up: give someone all of himself.

“When he sees what?”

“What I thought, and felt, and how I remember it. It’s not—I’m not—come on, Alice, you of all people, it can’t have escaped your notice that I’m not a very good person, a lot of the time. And if what I say and do is bad—” What he thinks and feels is undoubtedly worse. 

But there’s no other way. Memories are experiences wrapped in emotion, not just the facts, but the feelings, too. If Eliot gives Quentin back some part of Arielle, he’ll be cracking himself open too, and spilling his jealousy, his manipulation. If he gives him Teddy, he’ll be burdening him with Eliot’s insecurity, his horrible experiences with his own father, the callousness with which he treated Fen and never really considered his daughter who died. For all the nights they fell asleep wrapped up in each other, there are mornings in which Eliot pushed Quentin away, or brushed him off, or doubted his heart.

Oh, Eliot’s still afraid. If Quentin sees that, if he really knows the truth of it, the ins and outs and fuckery of Eliot’s mind…

But. _You didn’t trust me_, Quentin had said, and Eliot will live with the memory of the hurt in his voice forever, and know he inflicted it. This is, actually, the least he can do for the man he loves. The one he knows he does trust, if he can just let himself believe it.

“But then, why do you want to do it?” Alice asks, very reasonably, like she’s actually considering his words. She even sounds genuinely curious, which is more than he would be, in her situation.

She seems to have stepped back and decided to examine him impartially, like a particle under a fancy light microscope, which is probably what gives him the courage to answer honestly.

“Because. I’m afraid. Of him seeing the person I am. But it’s _Quentin_. He looks for the good, doesn’t he? So maybe, he’ll see the person I’m trying to be, too.” Or so Eliot hopes. “The one I want to be, for—” 

Fuck, Eliot _hopes_.

Alice is staring at him, jaw set, faint frown line between her eyebrows, and it’s not impartial anymore, but she doesn’t look angry so much as thoughtful. “The person you want to be,” she echoes. “You really love him, don’t you?”

Eliot just looks at her. Does that even require an answer?

Perhaps not, because Alice continues without waiting for one. “I mean, I figured you _wanted_ him, practically from the start. And that for all that you acted like nothing meant anything, back then, you cared about your friends, anyone could see that. But the way he was, when you were possessed, I didn’t understand where it came from. Not until now.” 

“You mean, it came from the Mosaic?” Eliot asks. He’s wondered about it, when Quentin has occasionally discussed his Monster experience, the depression and numbness and generally terrifying lack of care for his own well-being. Whether Eliot’s rejection of him after the whole Mosaic lifetime might have been contributing, at least partially, to his misery. “I guess, we were together, not together-together, or well, not the whole time, but what I mean is, we lived in each other’s pockets, for a long while. It makes sense that he’d miss—”

“No, not that life,” Alice interrupts. “This. The way you are about him. No wonder he’s the same way about you.”

There is, as always, something knee-jerk in Eliot that wants to brush the idea off, cool and unconcerned, like it’s a piece of lint on his jacket. Oh, no, dear, silly Alice Quinn, that simply isn’t true. Quentin couldn’t _possibly_…

Eliot swallows. He feels like he has fucking butterflies in his stomach. He suspects that normal people don’t feel semi-nauseated when they’re trying to reconcile themselves to the fact that the love of their life… loves them back. But Quentin does. He does, beyond all expectation or reason. Eliot knows that; isn’t that why he’s here? 

As he’s wrestling with this, Alice does something surprising. She holds out her hand.

It’s palm up, so not looking for a handshake. After a second, Eliot takes it, half expecting her to yank it back, or curse him in some brilliant fashion. But she just stands there, and he stands there, and they’re holding hands.

They’ve done it before. At the bonfire, when Quentin was dead and Eliot could barely make it out of bed. Before they built the resurrection fire, when Alice was doubting, and Eliot brought her back around. And then, at Quentin’s bedside once he was alive again, and there was an unspoken pact never to leave him alone, for fear that he would disappear. They’ve never been close, he and Alice, but they’ve shared a compendium of experience that no one else really has, negotiated a silent give-and-take, coexisted in the being-in-love-with state of Quentin Coldwater.

Eliot takes a breath. Being-in-love-with, and being loved in return, he reminds himself, and lets it sink into him, as much as he can.

Maybe Eliot will never be able to look at her without a frisson of fear, that she’s the one Quentin truly wants and deserves. And maybe Alice will never be able to look at him without a pang of resentment, for inserting himself into her relationship and fracturing it, not once, but twice. But maybe, just maybe, that’s not the sum total of what they can be, together.

“Thanks,” Alice says. “For bringing him back.”

“Okay,” he says. “We couldn’t have done it without you, though, and all the work you did. So. You know. You, too.”

“Okay,” she replies, matter-of-fact. “So, let’s rework this spell.”

It’s not forgiveness, exactly. It’s not quite friendship, not yet, or not again. But there’s understanding, here, Eliot thinks. There’s something to build on, if he dares. And it turns out, with Quentin by his side, he’s been daring quite a lot, lately. 

* * *

Quentin’s working at the dining table when Eliot gets home, later than usual. He keeps scribbling for a few seconds instead of saying hello, knowing he’ll forget the idea if he doesn’t get it down. When he finally glances up, Eliot is standing there, looking at him fondly.

“Hi,” Quentin says. “How was your day, dear?” He means it to be mocking, this little act of domesticity, but he thinks he misses by a mile, because it never fails to summon a smile on to his face, the fact that he gets to have this, and the happiness echoes in his voice, too.

“Eventful,” Eliot responds, and holds out his hands. Curious, Quentin lets himself be pulled up and dragged over to Julia’s room, where they sit on the edge of the bed together. “So, I went to see the White Lady,” he says, without further preamble.

“What?”

“I asked her if there was any way to give you your memories back,” Eliot continues in a rush. 

“Eliot. Why—why would you do that now?” Quentin swallows. He knows that Eliot feels it sometimes, the fact that he wants to share an experience with Quentin without having to explain it, but can’t, because Quentin doesn’t fucking remember. He hadn’t realized it was bothering him so much, though.

“No, it’s not—it hurts you, doesn’t it? And it hurts me, that I hurt you. I don’t need you to remember for myself, Q, I really don’t. But I just figured, why not go back to the source, and just ask? _Why the fuck not try_,” he says, and Quentin gets it. 

“Oh. What did she say?”

Eliot shakes his head. “Can’t unwish a wish.”

“Oh. Okay. You know that I don’t—I don’t need to remember, either, El. I understand why you did what you did. I wish I could, sometimes, but what we have now—” 

“Yeah. For me too.” 

“I’m glad you tried,” Quentin offers. “I’m glad you told me.”

“Yeah. But, um. There’s more.” 

“Okay,” Quentin says, with some trepidation, because Eliot sounds weird. He listens as Eliot explains about the sense-memory aspect of the spell that was used to rebuild Quentin’s body, most of which Quentin already knows, and then proceeds to describe a modification that he came up with, aided by Alice, of all people. “So. You’d be able to give me access to your memories of that timeline,” he summarizes.

“It’s not the same as remembering yourself, I know,” Eliot says, apologetic. He’s squeezing Quentin’s hand tightly. “You wouldn’t have your experience of it, you’d just get mine. Which’ll be biased, and trippy, probably. But you know. If you want to see them. Teddy and Arielle and the grandkids. Geek out about the unsolvable puzzle you solved, and know what the pieces actually looked like. See yourself in a horrible beard that’ll make you eschew facial hair for the rest of your life. You can.”

He’s playing it cool, but from what he’s described, Quentin knows it’s more than that. He’d see all those things through Eliot’s eyes, yes, but he would feel them all from Eliot’s heart, too. Memories don’t exist in isolation, but in a complex, interrelated structure of their own, as he’s learned from their absence. If they do this spell, he’ll know everything that Eliot’s wrapped up in these memories, every emotion, every thought that’s linked to them by a thread. A startling and unprecedented level of intimacy.

“Do you want me to?” Quentin asks, and Eliot looks away, but doesn’t let go of Quentin’s hand. Quentin’s curious, of course he is, and he wants to know; he’s wanted to remember ever since he understood that there was anything he had forgotten. But this is an immense thing for Eliot to offer. “Because we don’t have to do this. I mean it. Not if you don’t want to.”

“I don’t know, Q. I think I do want to. And I know—because I want to give you a choice. If you want it, it’s yours, okay?”

“Okay,” Quentin says gently. “Then I want it.”

They break out of the second bedroom, and do the spell in the living room, where there’s more space to draw the runes, and an area rug that will hide the marks later if they don’t wash out. Eliot looks nervous, but his hands are steady and sure as he casts the offering. A hazy light, like a bonfire through its own wreathes of smoke, flickers to life in the space between his palms.

He speaks the words of release, and the light appears in Quentin’s hands. He holds it to his face like he’s inhaling the fumes, and…

And then—

“I _remember_,” Quentin breathes.

“So, it worked. You have my memories,” Eliot says, in the breezy way he does when he’s pretending to be casual. The light has flickered out. They’re just standing together in their completely unremarkable living room, runes painted on the floor between them.

“No, El. I mean, yes, that too, but I’ve got _mine_.”

Eliot rolls his eyes. “That’s impossible, Q, it’s not how the spell works.”

“You use that word entirely too much in your internal monologue, by the way,” Quentin comments, as an aside.

He’s really only teasing, but Eliot looks at the rune on the floor.

“Hey,” he says, taking Eliot’s hands, forgetting about proving his point for now. “I get it. It’s okay. It’s just the way your brain breaks.” It sees good things, and says, “Not for me, I don’t deserve them.” It dismisses; it disbelieves. 

It breaks Quentin’s heart. It sets the feeling rising up in him, the burning, swelling, aching tide of love, the “let me help” of it all.

He’s kind of expecting Eliot to brush it off, but he meets Quentin’s eyes instead. Starts talking, slow at first, then speeding up. Still nervous, Quentin realizes. “I know my life doesn’t work. I know I’m broken. I feel like I don’t even think about it anymore, because it’s all I’ve ever known. But then, sometimes, something makes me believe that everything I know is fucked, and maybe I’m _not_ broken beyond repair, and I look up, and the something is always you.”

“I know,” Quentin says, because he does. Because through every painful memory, every self-sabotaging spiral of ridiculous mental hoops Eliot jumps through to convince himself that he’s unloved and unwanted, there runs this fine, contrasting thread: he wants to believe he’s wrong. He’s afraid of wanting, but he wants it anyway. He was terrified of doing this spell, but here he is. And he attributes all of that to… God, he files it all away, no questions asked, under “Quentin Coldwater.”

It’s a humbling thing, to be loved the way Eliot loves him. Whenever Eliot is kind, whenever he strives to do what’s right, or what he’s afraid of, whenever he dares to hope—in short, all the best parts of him, the beautiful things he is and does, all on his own, despite everything his life has done to discourage him—his mind says, “This couldn’t possibly be me. This is Quentin’s mark on me.”

He does it with Margo, too. The two people he loves most in the world: they’re the only good things in his life he allows himself to believe in. He doesn’t realize that to be loved like that, to be believed in like that, is what makes it possible.

“Do you remember the day we talked about planting the garden?” Quentin asks at last. “How you thought I’d be the one to solve the Mosaic. Because I was the ‘true believer’ between us?”

Eliot laughs a little. “Of course _I_ remember. You’ve got _my_ memory of it. And anyway, I was right, wasn’t I? I up and died first. You stuck it out, you solved it. I realized, later, I never asked you how.”

“You were, actually, right. ‘I couldn’t have done this without Eliot Waugh.’” He smiles, lets the mocking sit and settle for a second, and then adds, “The last tile. Do you know, I found it when I was digging your grave?”

“What?” Eliot asks. “I don’t—”

“I didn’t care about it, I wasn’t thinking about the puzzle anymore. It didn’t feel like a prize, or an accomplishment. All I was thinking about was how you were gone, and I was alone. I didn’t believe in anything, anymore, except our life together. And then I put it down, and got the key, and Jane Chatwin showed up, and I told her, it wasn’t just me. I couldn’t have done it without you.” 

“I don’t remember that,” Eliot says.

“Of course you don’t, you idiot. You were dead. That’s what I’m telling you. It’s _my_ memory.”

“How is that—”

“When I kissed you, the first time, on our first anniversary. It took me weeks to work up to it. I—it’s like I told you, I’d always just gone for it, before, but with you—I was so worried about risking our friendship. What we had was so good already. I thought, you’re my best friend, and if it’s never more than that, it’s not settling, it’s still everything. And I was nervous because I mean, you’ve been with so many more people than I have, and we never talked about the threesome, and I wasn’t sure… but then I kissed you, and you looked at me like… no one had ever touched you like I did, before.”

“No one ever had,” Eliot says. His voice is hoarse; his eyes are wide.

“I’m trying to tell you. I remember. You’re not alone in this, anymore.”

As it turns out, unremarkable volunteer tomato Quentin Coldwater is actually living a pretty remarkable life, what with magic, and quests, and dying and being resurrected; fifty years in an alternate timeline with the love of his life, and maybe fifty more to come in this one. But he doesn’t think he’s ever seen anything more remarkable than Eliot’s face like this: filling with multifarious emotions like the sky fills with colors at dawn, slowly, surely, beautifully. Everything lit up with hope. Happiness, luminous.

“_How_?”

How can Quentin explain it? It’s like there’s a map in invisible ink traced on the walls of his mind, like dwarf doors in Tolkien mirror only starlight and moonlight, hidden until the moment of illumination. Eliot’s memories are the light by which Quentin finds his own.

Of course, the love of his fucking life isn’t much of a fantasy fan, is he? Isn’t that just—

Well. It’s still wonderful, actually. Quentin can’t even grumble or tease, not really. His heart is too full. Everything about this moment is wonderful. Their differences are beautiful. The way they connect across them is dizzying. The fact that they’ve made it through the forest to this clearing, together, and that the future is a path that stretches out before them, wide enough to walk side-by-side, is everything.

He meets Eliot’s eyes, and says none of this, but he knows that Eliot knows.

“I guess, maybe your memories are only part of the experience we shared. Mine are the other half. It’s like in minor mending. Things that have split artificially—”

“Want to be whole,” Eliot finishes. “The life we lived was incomplete, with only my version of it. So when your mind saw my memories, it extrapolated. It could retrace the steps. Recreate the other half from the negative space.”

“Um. Have you actually been listening to me talk about my research? Or have you been reading my textbooks on the sly? First _Fillory and Further_, and now this?”

“Well. I don’t know if you realized this. But I kind of missed you, you fucking nerd.”

And Quentin doesn’t know if Eliot means when he was dead, or all this time he’s been alive again without memories of the life they shared, but it doesn’t matter anymore, does it?

“I know. And I’m sorry, El. I still don’t know, in the Mirror Realm, if I…” Was it Quentin trying and failing, or giving up? Maybe he’ll never know. But maybe he can live with that uncertainty. Move forward from it. “I’ll try, okay? I’ll keep trying. I won’t leave you again, not by choice.”

Eliot glances away for a second, blinking, before looking back, and if there are tears in his eyes, Quentin will never tell. He’ll keep it safe. “I’ll try, too,” Eliot promises. “Not to run. I mean, I’m beginning to see that it’s something of a hardwired flight response, and I don’t always understand that I’m doing it until it’s _decidedly_ too late, but—”

“We’re both pretty fucked up, huh?” Quentin asks, but he’s smiling. _Soulmates_. What a thought, that there’s someone out there for him, and not even out there, somewhere in the universe, but right here. Standing in front of him.

“Mm hmm,” Eliot hums, smiling back. But then his face grows uncharacteristically serious. “Q. Hey. You know I meant it, right? Back when you first woke up. It’s okay, even if… you try, and you keep trying, and I love that about you. But if it’s ever too much, and you need help. If you slip. I’m here, okay? I’ll—” he ducks his head, shy, and it’s about the most precious thing Quentin has ever seen, and he’d coo if he didn’t think he was on the verge of tears himself. “I’ll catch you, all right?”

Part of Quentin wants to tease him after all, for the ridiculous cliché, and most of him is welling up with wordless gratitude, that someone like Eliot exists in the world, for him. But all he says is, “All right.” And then, stepping forward into Eliot’s space: “But fair warning. It goes both ways. So if you get scared and run, asshole, I’ll, um…”

“You’ll what?” Eliot asks. He sounds delighted, seriousness evaporating into the diminishing air between them. “_Chase me_?”

Quentin commits to the ridiculousness of it. “Yeah, I will,” he says, lifting his chin, and it’s a vow, as sacred as Eliot’s was.

“Well, honestly, I’m kind of tempted to do it just so I can see what that rom-com looks like. Maybe we should be thanking Brian. I don’t think you could have pulled off dashing romantic leading man without his haircut. Except maybe in a high school indie film.” But Eliot’s winding his fingers into Quentin’s hair gently with one hand as he speaks, while the other is skimming lightly down his back, pulling him even closer.

“Oh, shut up,” Quentin says. “If you can go on about _catching me when I fall_, I think I’m allowed to invoke _one_ cliché—”

“Okay, okay, fine.”

“Fine.”

“Thanks,” Eliot says quietly, and it’s up against Quentin’s lips, so he lets him have the last word, this time.

Much later, when Quentin’s tucked up against Eliot’s chest, and has pretty much given up on any plans for being productive this evening (what time is it, even?), Eliot says, “Do you think we should have talked about them more? Before?”

“Hmm?”

“Teddy, and Arielle. That whole life. Telling you about it these past few weeks, when you couldn’t remember, was hard, but it was also… you told your dad, but I never told anyone. I never really let myself think about it before. Until I was the only person in the world who knew about it, and then I realized how important it was to me. It’s part of us, isn’t it? It’s the reason we’re—it’s where we come from.”

“Yes and no,” Quentin says, which makes Eliot snicker for some reason. “I mean, if anything, this whole experience goes to show that we probably would’ve ended up together even without the Mosaic, right? I mean, since you basically fell irresistibly in love with me at first sight…”

Eliot pinches his hip in retaliation. “And since you were obliviously falling in love with me all along?” he returns. “I guess. I didn’t think about it like that.”

“I’m glad I remember,” Quentin says, more seriously. “I don’t want to forget them. And I didn’t want you to be alone, carrying them. It _is_ part of us, one of the places we come from. It’s important. But it’s not the whole, right? It’s not where we are now, or where we’re going.” 

Eliot kisses the top of his head. “And wherever are we going next, Q?” he asks.

“I don’t know,” Quentin says. He’s thinking about dinner for two, how Eliot can be prevailed upon to cook, how they might have to drag themselves out of bed and put on clothes and venture to the market so that Eliot can make whatever unnecessarily fancy dish he’d been talking about the other day. He’s thinking about the broken mug in the cupboard, and the missing piece that lives in the nightstand, on Eliot’s side, but by _their_ bed. He’s thinking about tomorrow morning, going their separate ways to Brakebills and Fillory; he’s thinking about tomorrow night, and coming home to each other. 

This is living, Quentin thinks. They’re doing this, going forward into the unknown, together. “I don’t know where we’re going,” he says again. “But let’s go.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> pity this busy monster, manunkind,  
not. Progress is a comfortable disease:  
your victim (death and life safely beyond)
> 
> plays with the bigness of his littleness  
— electrons deify one razorblade  
into a mountainrange; lenses extend  
unwish through curving wherewhen till unwish  
returns on its unself.  
A world of made  
is not a world of born — pity poor flesh
> 
> and trees, poor stars and stones, but never this  
fine specimen of hypermagical 
> 
> ultraomnipotence. We doctors know
> 
> a hopeless case if — listen: there’s a hell  
of a good universe next door; let’s go
> 
> As much as I love this poem, I also know it’s totally unrelated to the plot of this story. However, back when I barely had the beginnings of an idea, I read the line “unwish returns on its unself” and came up with the ending: how Eliot undoes his wish and Quentin gets his memories back. Then, I wrote a lot of words to get there.
> 
> On a personal note: if you’re still here reading this monster, and especially if you’ve left a kudo or a comment, I just want to say how grateful I am. Before I wrote my first story for this fandom in the spring, I honestly hadn’t tried to write fiction in about a decade, and didn’t think I ever would again, but here I am. Your encouragement and kindness have been invaluable, so much love and thanks!
> 
> Lastly, it occurs to me that no matter what bizarre and angsty and complex plot ideas I start out with for this pairing, I always end up writing pages and pages about hope. (Maybe that’s why these two appeal to me so much, because I need that sometimes.) Anyway, if you could use a little hope in your life, I hope this story brings you some too <3


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